New York, NY (Top40 Charts) With his Texan charm, John Ford Coley shows how it's done on his new double CD, "Long Way Home," produced by The Fourth Way World. Coley is most revered as half of the duo "England" Dan Seals and John Ford Coley. Together, they earned a wall of multi-platinum hits and gold records.
On the
Israel CD, the Sea of Galilee concert presents pristine renditions of hits, including "Long Way Home," "It's Sad To Belong," and "What's Forever For," and compelling new compositions. He rocks hard with "Cottonmouth Grove" and gets the crowd singing his latest anthem, "Should've Never Left Texas." John has a warm spot for
Israel and visits often. Coley dedicated "Soldier In The Rain," a tribute Coley wrote for Vietnam vets, to Israel. In perfect Hebrew, John serenaded the crowd with "HaTikva" ("The Hope"), Israel's national anthem. After the trip, he wrote "I Stand With Israel," the one studio track on the album. The video link features concert footage and finds Coley most at home on horseback, in a jeep, or walking through the streets of Jerusalem.
On the raucous L.A. concert CD, fans jump in and sing loudly and banter with Coley in a love affair spanning decades. From the opening notes of "Gone Too Far," played on Elton John's piano, no less, to "Nights Are Forever," Coley makes it a nonstop party at this career celebration at The Village Studios, interspersing songs with the hilarious and often moving stories behind them.
L.A. is a gateway for many Asian fans, especially from the Philippines, where Coley remains a top American music star, having completed 31 tours. Coley finds kinship between Filipinos and Texans, shifting easily into Tagalog, albeit with a
Texas accent. On "Just Tell Me You Love Me," Coley relates the song's overseas impact with schoolchildren throughout Asia, who often sing every last word back to him.
By contrast, he teases the L.A. crowd on whether they know the double entendre lyrics to the smash hit "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight," which has racked up over 5 million plays on American radio alone.
The most explosive reaction was for "The Soul Of The Wanderer," a poem he wrote for his grandmother in 1983 and recently transformed into a six-minute epic. "This one is harder than the dickens to play," a humble beginning as Coley launched into a masterful display of what one man with a perfect voice and a guitar can do. It becomes crystal clear that Coley is indeed one of the most effective craftsman in popular music and his vitality as a songwriter is as strong as ever.
The concert closes with "Love Is The Answer," a Todd Rundgren tune that Coley and Seals took to the top of the charts in 1979. Coley still loves the song because it is "cloaked in a lot of spiritual ambiguity." Knowing a song can have different meanings for each listener, Coley reveals the meaning of the song for him, "I take the song as being relevant on a personal one-on-one level. "We should show love and a kinder edge to those closest to us, and those across the aisle, especially during times like these."
LONG WAY HOME is available at www.johnfordcoley.com and on Spotify, iTunes, and Amazon.
