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About mark
Mark Erelli is a critically acclaimed American singer-songwriter, producer, and guitarist known for his distinctive blend of rock, folk, and Americana. His music is known for its lyrical depth and intricate instrumentation, drawing influence from classic rock icons. Mark has collaborated with artists including Rosanne Cash, Sheryl Crow, and Anaïs Mitchell; opened for the likes of Marc Cohn, Watchhouse, Josh Ritter, and many others; released fourteen solo albums and three albums with his bluegrass band Barnstar!; and produced two records for GRAMMY-winning artist Lori McKenna.
About spring green
A Tender Revolution: Mark Erelli's Spring Green and the Art of Staying Open
For his fourteenth solo album Spring Green, Boston singer-songwriter Mark Erelli began with a specific intention. “I wanted to release myself from the impulse to showcase all the different musical things I’m capable of doing,” he confesses. Unconcerned with adding to the diversity of his catalog, Erelli stepped up to the microphone and focused instead on simply being. The result is his most cohesive and emotionally resonant work to date, a tone poem on vulnerability that feels both deeply personal and universally applicable.
Following 2023's Lay Your Darkness Down, which documented Erelli's immediate response to vision loss from his retinitis pigmentosa diagnosis, Spring Green finds the artist in a different headspace entirely. If his previous album was an oil painting, with meticulous layers of instruments that Erelli mostly played himself, this collection feels more akin to watercolor—fluid, organic, unforced. It's the sound of an artist who has moved through the acute phase of grief into something more sustainable: acceptance tinged with hard-won wisdom.
The title track is an elegant exploration of the album’s central theme, utterly profound despite its simplicity. In a world that makes us want to "batten the hatches and circle the wagons," offers Erelli, “our humanity depends on staying tender and open.” This isn't naive optimism—Erelli has earned his hope through genuine struggle. “It's closer to that Buddhist notion of The Beginner's Mind, learning to glean value and gain new insights from the very things that make you feel most vulnerable."
Sonically, Spring Green represents an audible departure from Erelli's deep and diverse catalog. Gone is the need to flex his full dynamic vocal range; instead, he leans into what he describes as "writing, singing, and playing a little more within myself." Co-produced with longtime collaborator Zachariah Hickman, the album was largely recorded live in the studio in just three days, with an ease that surprised even Erelli. His regular live band, augmented by drummer Shane Leonard and pedal steel player Rich Hinman, captured five songs on the first day alone, establishing an instant intimacy that permeates the entire record.
Echoes of classic singer-songwriters—Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Neil Young, Van Morrison—are evident, not in pastiche but in philosophy. Like his musical forebears, Erelli prioritizes clarity of storytelling and the emotional power of the human voice over genre exercises. Like a well-loved flannel shirt, there's a softer, seasoned quality to these performances that suggests comfort rather than ambition, presence over projection.
Spring Green is also Erelli's most collaborative work to date, with over half its songs co-written with partners including Peter Mulvey, Rose Cousins, and Anthony da Costa. This communal approach subtly amplifies the motif that threads through the whole collection—these aren't all Erelli's stories, but they explore our shared understanding and experiences of change, loss, and renewal. The opening track "King of Nothing" sets a spare, impressionist tone, while "Summer Boys" offers perhaps the album's most personal moment, a richly-detailed meditation on the dance between fatherhood and childhood.
The title track serves as both the album’s mission statement and its emotional center, a celebration of "being brave enough to open all of yourself to someone else, and be able to see all of them in return." The metaphor is apt: spring green is a color you have to actively look for, a fleeting annual reminder that optimism requires engagement and attention.
What makes Spring Green particularly compelling is how it functions as both an artistic statement and survival manual. These aren't songs about overcoming adversity so much as learning to live sustainably alongside uncertainty. When Erelli sings "Days when the sky is gray - the horizon made less colorful, just wait and you'll see - how the world can be so wonderful," he's not offering empty consolation but a lesson on how endurance can evolve into hard-earned wisdom.
In an era when musicians are constantly told to adapt to new paradigms and platforms, Erelli's approach feels refreshingly direct. The decision to release Spring Green initially through Bandcamp, personally packing and shipping each order, reflects a deep commitment to some of his core values: authentic connection over industry machinations, depth over breadth, relationships over transactions.
Spring Green arrives as Erelli's most mature and focused work—an album that both documents personal transformation and models a way of being in the world. It's the rare record that both comforts and challenges, offering what Erelli calls "a sense of peace and solace" while never letting listeners off the hook emotionally. In a time when tenderness can feel like a luxury we can ill afford, Erelli makes a compelling case that it's actually the only thing that might save us.
This is the sound of an artist who has stopped trying to be all things to all people, only to discover that being fully himself is more than enough. Spring Green doesn't demand your attention so much as it earns your trust, one song at a time.
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PRAISE FOR MARK ERELLI
"With no less than 18 albums to his credit - all of superb quality - it's long past time he received the recognition he so decidedly deserves...an excellent offering by any measure, informed as always by the intelligence, instincts, and emotions that have served him so well in the past." -American Songwriter
"Americana folk singer Mark Erelli amps it up a notch...Erelli’s band alternately rocks and lends majesty to his more introspective musings. Erelli offers up his art with honesty and an earnestness that will surely earn him new followers." -The Associated Press
"He can whip his band into a joyful froth. Erelli is a throwback of sorts, a foursquare acoustic songwriter in an age of digital audio workstations." -The Boston Globe on Blindsided
"Beautiful and honest...a full auditory and emotional experience." -The Boston Globe on Lay Your Darkness Down
“After releasing over a dozen solo albums and spending 25-plus years at the heart of the Massachusetts music scene, (Live In Rockport is) an encapsulation of Erelli’s entire MO as an artist: tender, intentional connection…it’s a remarkable feat.” -NPR / WBUR
”One of the 10 Best Country and Americana Songs To Hear Now” -Rolling Stone on “Rose Colored Rearview”
”With his warm, Tom Petty-inflected voice and honest songwriting, Erelli navigates tricky terrain with graceful contemplation and resilience." -No Depression
”Mark Erelli possesses a rare gift: the ability to uncover joy and humanity in any situation—even when chronicling adversity and heartbreak…one of his generation’s most thoughtful folk songwriters.” -Twangville
"Mark Erelli shakes things up on his latest album...Blindsided may be his best yet" -Medium
"...a really wonderful record. Go for a walk… listen, become happy." -Maine Public Radio
"Equal parts rootsy Americana and old-school rock, loaded with raw emotion and
steadfast truthfulness." -Lonesome Highway
"...a serious, talented artist, but he also understands his role as a storyteller and entertainer...Erelli pulls from lots of places and makes things his own." -Glide Magazine
"Mark Erelli has consistently expanded his sound while also not chasing whatever wave seems to be cresting at any given moment. The result is a catalogue
of depth and heart." -Red Line Roots
"Erelli's always been a brilliant songsmith, but here he finds a dynamic that melds the cerebral with the celebratory." -Country Standard Time