For those unaware, Dane Clark is set to release Memory Mile on October 21st, 2022, his first new album since 2020’s history-making Songs From Isolation.

The release date, as it happens, is also his birthday. The Anderson, Indiana-based musician is well known as the touring and recording drummer in John Mellencamp’s band and is an accomplished vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who has previously recorded and released seven critically lauded albums featuring a range of guest musicians including John Sebastian, Carlene Carter, Ian Hunter, Mickey Raphael, members of Moby Grape and Donovan.

This time out, Clark tips his musical hat to the latter with the album’s lead track – his own rendition of “Riki Tiki Tavi,” a charting single for Donovan in 1970.

Donovan was delighted with Clark’s version and, in fact, appears with Linda Lawrence, his wife of 52 years, in the video for the song that is based on the mongoose character in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

“Worst Best Friend” features Donovan on lead vocals and was written as a collaboration with Clark, Donovan’s first co-write ever. The song was conceived during the 2005 Mellencamp tour on which Donovan guest starred when he and Clark struck up a friendship that exists to the present day.

Clark recalls, “What an honor it was to back Donovan and play his greatest hits every night. I’m humbled beyond words and so happy that our song, ‘Worst Best Friend,’ is finally seeing the light of release.”

1. Riki Tiki Tavi
2. Worst Best Friend
3. Magic Woman Eyes
4. Wrong Gone World
5. Eyes Of A Child
6. Chevy Hat
7. Dream Motel
8. Divided Land
9. Emily Marie
10. Still My Baby Girl
11. Memory Mile

This beautifully crafted, wholesome and heartfelt album opens on the groove-inflected rock of Riki Tiki Tavi and the countrified, Donovan-sung Worst Best Friend and follows those up with the fun, fantasy-imbibed rocker Magic Woman Eyes, the fusional cross between Steely Dan and Jefferson Airplane of Wrong Gone World (which also features Dane’s daughter Abigail on shared vocals), and then comes the Celtic-imbued, reflective Eyes Of A Child.

Next up is the Springsteen-esque, sax-hued rocker Chevy Hat and the troubadour rolling Dream Motel and they are in turn backed seamlessly by the mid-tempo balladry of a lyrical outreach for political harmony within Divided Land, the beautifully earnest Emily Marie (written for his oldest daughter), with the album rounding out on the wedding song Still My Baby Girl (written for the wedding celebration of his middle daughter, Taylor), closing on the harmonica-driven, Elliott Murphy co-vocalized, titular Memory Mile.

As with Songs From Isolation, the first pandemic-themed and pandemic-spawned album to be issued while the country was still on lockdown, Memory Mile by Dane Clark and the Backroom Boys was recorded in Clark’s home studio with contributions from Randy Melson (bass), Erik Scull (guitars, keyboard, vocals) and Troye Kinnett (keyboards), and will be released on Clark’s Thundersound imprint digitally later this month and on vinyl and CD in early 2023.

The album’s striking cover art is by Hugh Syme, the award winning designer whose work has been featured on albums by Iron Maiden, Celine Dion, Joe Bonamassa, Supertramp, Bon Jovi, KISS, Whitesnake, Aerosmith, The Band, Earth, Wind & Fire and every Rush album since 1975.

Those participants were joined by several other notablers on the album which, in fact, Clark thought he might even title Collaborations to underscore the communal effort reflected in the album’s credits.

Also among Memory Mile’s highlights is “Dream Motel,” a Rolling Stones-tinged acoustic rocker with Clark playing all the guitars on the track. Troye Kinnett joins on accordion and upright piano with Erik Scull on background vocals with Dave Roe on bass.

Roe had been Johnny Cash’s longtime bass player and has worked with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach of late. The song was co-written in Nashville with Fred Koller, who co-wrote (with John Hiatt) the hit “Angel Eyes” for Jeff Healey and “Let’s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian” with John Prine.

The album’s title track was co-written by Elliott Murphy, whose cult following since the early 1970 has followed him from New York to Spain to France, where he is now based. Murphy plays harmonica and vocalizes with Clark, along with Erik Scull and Dane’s daughter Abigail Clark. Dane Clark notes, “This one always makes me smile, and I hope it does to all of you too.”

Official Website

Dane Clark @ Facebook

Dane Clark @ YouTube