Singer, songwriter, and poet Mark Germino passed away this week after a tragic accident. As an artist, he released four critically-acclaimed solo albums circa 1986-95 as well as an acclaimed 1991 album recorded with Nashville rockers the Sluggers. Germino pursued a sound that was part folk, part country, and part rock n’ roll, and although his smallish catalog of music never found a wider audience, he was a well-respected Nashville wordsmith, with songs recorded by artists like Vince Gill, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, John Anderson, and Kenny Chesney, among others.
I didn’t know Mark all that well, but we hung out a bit in Nashville in the early ‘90s. Introduced to Germino by the late, great Jack Emerson of Praxis International (Jack managed Jason & the Scorchers and Webb Wilder, among other artists), I saw him perform a couple of times and was suitably impressed. Germino’s handful of albums are criminally underrated, and a recent campaign towards “rediscovery” of this worthy had begun before his death. Below are comments from Mark’s entry in my 2012 book
The Other Side of Nashville, a history of the Music City rock scene (in italics) along with current reflections on the artist.
Mark Germino – The Other Side of Nashville
Mark Germino moved to Nashville from North Carolina around 1974 and quickly fell in with the street poetry/alt-songwriter crowd that included talents like Steve Earle, Kevin Welch, John Allingham, Dave Olney, and Tom House. Germino began turning his carefully-constructed and verbose poetry into carefully-constructed and verbose songs, and began playing clubs at night while driving a truck during the day.
Germino scored a publishing deal in 1980 and while few mainstream Music Row hacks had the cajónes to actually record a Germino song, a few visionaries like Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, and Vince Gill did so. Germino landed his label deal mid-decade after Earle had opened the door for the first wave of alt-country artists.
Germino’s deal with RCA Records resulted in the release of a pair of pretty decent albums – 1986’s London Moon & Barnyard Remedies and the following year’s Caught In the Act of Being Ourselves. Neither album gained any traction with country radio, mostly because Germino was too original, too eccentric, and too wordy to pen three-minute chart hits. Shunned by Music Row, Germino hooked up with some guys from similar poet Tim Krekel’s band, the Sluggers, and delivered the stunning 1991 album Radartown…
Radartown is the culmination of Germino’s better than 15 years of hard work, struggle, and flirtations with stardom, a near-perfect collection of working-class blues backed by one of Nashville’s best band of veteran rockers. The original “Rex Bob Lowenstein” from 1987 had earned Germino a European following and a short-lived chart position in the U.K. Here the song takes on a brilliant anarchic quality that appeals to the outlaw mentality, while tunes like “Radartown” and “Unionville” are blue collar odes to hard times. Germino’s smart story-songs, like “Leroy and Bo’s Totalitarian Showdown” display both his talent and wry sense of humor. Altogether, Radartown is one of the best rock ‘n’ roll albums to ever come from the mean streets of the Music City.
Sadly, Radartown fell on deaf ears as major label A&R drones were then hovering over Seattle and the Pacific Northwest looking for the next Nirvana or Soundgarden, not a scrappy pugilist poet from Nashville, of all places. Tom Petty may have written about “The Last DJ,” but Germino’s “Rex Bob Lowenstein” is a more powerful expression of the same theme, something that Mark must have agreed with as he recorded three different versions of the song, all excellent! When Radartown failed to find a greater audience, Germino went back to his roots and recorded 1995’s acoustic Rank & File for Nashville indie label Winter Harvest, part of an impressive roster of artists that included Steve Earle, Mickey Newbury, Mac Gayden, Jonell Mosser, and John Kay (Steppenwolf).
In between the release of his final RCA album, Caught In the Act of Being Ourselves in ‘87 and the release of the indie label gem Rank & File in 1995, Germino hooked up for a few years with the Sluggers for an album of real poop-punting rock ‘n’ roll music. This one is a fine acoustic set with Germino’s typically well-written, intelligent, and erudite songs that evince more humor than a stage full o’ drunken stand-up comedians. The album also has the third – count ‘em! – third version of Germino’s wonderful “Rex Bob Lowenstein.” After this one, Germino disappeared for over six years, turning his back on music, and writing three novels. He has since come back and is touring with his unique country/rock/folk sound.
Germino returned to the studio in 2021 to record Midnight Carnival for Red Parlor Records, an Americana label which has released wonderful albums by artists like Carla Olson, Dave Olney, Chris Whitley, Charlie Karp, and Eric Lindell, among others. Germino was enlisted by some old friends like guitarist Kenny Vaughan, bassist Tom Comet from the Sluggers, drummer Rick Lonow, and multi-instrumentalist Michael Webb to come down to Southern Grand Studios in Nashville to record Midnight Carnival, and the album is every bit as good as the contributors’ pedigrees suggest it would be.
There’s a long-lost Mark Germino album, recorded sometime during the ‘90s and distributed by the artist to his friends. Credited to “Mark Germino and the Grenade Angels,” the studio line-up included talents like guitarists Will Kimbrough and Rick Plant, bassist Todd Ellsworth, drummers Craig Wright and Willis Bailey (from the Sluggers), and the aforementioned Michael Webb, who co-produced the album with Germino. The resulting album – Atomic Candlestick – never received official release, ‘though there’s still hope as it seems that copies of the long out-of-print Rank & File are being bootlegged and available online.
Mark Germino was a unique and exceptionally gifted songwriter and performer in a vein similar to John Prine and Ray Wylie Hubbard, and although he provided songs and inspiration to a number of country artists in the 1990s and 2000s, he never got the industry attention and accolades he deserved.
Find out more about Mark Germino & his music at:
https://www.markgermino.com/
