Mark Germino

• London Moon and Backyard Remedies [RCA Victor, 1986] B+

Consumer Guide Reviews:

London Moon and Backyard Remedies [RCA Victor, 1986]
These days singer-songwriters are as likely to start out in Nashville as end up there, and though this literary thirty-five-year-old loves words too much to keep it simple and celebrated his big break by recording in London, he's a country boy at heart. When he falls in love he hears crickets and jackrabbits, when he tunes a diesel it sings like Patsy Cline, and when he gets to thinking about barn burnings and "suicide amortization" he writes one called "Political." Even his Dylanesque turns have their poetry, and if he betrays both his muse and his immigrant forebears with "God Ain't No Stained Glass Window," just remember--country boys always sink into bathos when they approach the Almighty. B+