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Jan. 12, 2024, will see the reissue, in a newly remastered edition, of New American Language, the 2001 album by acclaimed American songwriter, Dan Bern. Surprisingly, the occasion marks the first appearance of a Bern album on vinyl, during a career spanning more than 30 releases.
“Dan’s epic ‘Thanksgiving Day Parade,’ literally took two years to record,” says the song’s producer, Wil Masisak in the liner notes of the upcoming reissue. “The sense that we’d made something worth hearing coupled with the knowledge that we couldn’t have done this alone or without difficulty was immensely rewarding.
“Unfortunately, the release date was set for Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, and so it is that this incredible collection of American songwriting seemingly meant for those who did their best to carry on after 9/11 finds itself a little lost to time.”
“With Dan Bern’s large and acclaimed catalog, I have no idea how he has never had a vinyl release,” says John Young of Grand Phony Records (Mike Viola, Trapper Schoepp), the label that will reissue Bern’s landmark album. New American Language is my favorite Dan Bern album, Young says. With “fresh and vibrant” remastered audio, it is literally clearer that Bern’s lyrics “have proven to be prescient, as if they were written yesterday,” according to Young.
“National treasure” is an overused phrase to denote somebody whom Americans acknowledge as important. Someone whose contributions to the American fabric are numerous, never in doubt, but rarely at risk.
Bern and his work is something more ingrained than what “national treasure” can measure. What Bern has offered throughout a 30-album and counting career speaks to something deeper in us than any two-word workaround for actual criticism could define. Bern’s work takes those risks, and New American Language is his career’s most precarious statement. In a world filled with plenty of “safer” controversial subjects to write about, Bern could do that if he felt like it. We are better for his decision not to.
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In addition to being a Jeopardy clue, Bern has written thousands of songs, among such other notable career and personal highlights as writing songs for the Judd Apatow film “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” and Jonathan Demme’s film about Jimmy Carter (which Carter recognized Bern for when introducing Bern to his wife Roslyn, saying, “This is the fellow that wrote that song.”) Bern has opened for The Who (Daltrey has covered Bern’s songs), is a member of the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and taught tennis to Wilt Chamberlain.
The remastered, first-time-on-vinyl edition of New American Language will be followed by the launch of a six-week Dan Bern tour in Atlanta. See dates below. Starting Over, an all-new album of Bern songs is scheduled for release on March 1, 2024, via Grand Phony.
- Genre
- Folk & Singer-Songwriter