JOHN COSTER

Stories in the Dark

$ 7.00 USD (Electronic MP3 download only)

Click "Add to Cart" to purchase now.

In 1985, record buyers were treated to a masterpiece by this seasoned New England artist. John's captivating and pertinent lyrics and addictive melodies will make a believer of you. I've never heard a John Coster recording I didn't immediately love with all my soul. This album has been meticulously and thoroughly re-mastered for the first time for CD. A true labor of love by all concerned. Our special thanks to Lahri Bond for a magnificent job of adapting the L.P. graphics for modern format. - Joe Phillips

Stories in the Dark was named after a song I wrote but never recorded. The title seemed to fit although somehow we never got around to doing the song. The album captured the last days of the 80s Medicine Band. John Hammond Sr. liked my songs on the Old Stones album and had invited me to meet him in New York. I made the trip with my then wife, Maureen, who had done some album promotion and sent Hammond my record. He was the grand old man, a kind of professor emeritus of A&R, an old school aristocrat who had spent his whole life finding and promoting music, from Robert Johnson to Springsteen. He put me together with producer, Al Shackman, Nina Simone's long time music director, who had a studio in Northampton. That's where the album began. The record project became a vortex which picked people up and dropped them somewhere else. We ended up in Ct. finishing up the project at the 19 in Glastonbury by which time Al Shackman was gone from the area, and a small label had picked up the project, paying for the additional recording and pressing. My own life had changed completely. The album was really the result of all those gigs with The Medicine Band of that time. It captured guitarist Ricky King at peak stride and featured the first recordings I did with singing partner Susannah Keith, two elements which really defined the sound in those years. The project became an ongoing saga. Relationships broke up and formed, money came and went, clubs opened up and folded, but the album project was always there demanding my attention. It took way longer to finish than any other project I've ever done. I wrote all those songs, but sometimes now it feels more as if the songs wrote me. It does seem weird, after all this time, how relevant some of the implicit political commentary feels now. Thanks to Joe and Wildcat for reviving the project.

- John Coster 2011

Other albums by John Coster!

Click HERE to purchase any, or all of them!