Album Notes

A friend of mine who has never seen me naked has the theory that I am actually a lesbian. "Look, Clark, you like softball, flannel shirts, and monogamy. You play the guitar -- you're a lesbian." Well, I'm not, but sometimes I do feel like I have more in common with my gay sisters than my gay brothers. Gay men are not well represented in rock music -- we have Moby, Stipe, Elton John, Little Richard, and we had Freddy Mercury, but not too many others. I've always loved rock and never had much fondness for the musical genres that gay men generally prefer: opera, Broadway, dance music, the pop divas. A lot of "gay music" is escapist by nature, or our feelings are expressed clandestinely through characters in a musical or the love songs of women to men. I wanted to dive in and sing songs from a neglected cluster of feelings and situations that is seldom expressed directly in our music. I also wanted to sing these songs with accompaniment by guitar, instead of the piano which is the more expected instrument for a gay musician. None of the famous singer/songwriters are gay men -- we haven't got our own Dylan, Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell. My actual day job is working as a writer, a screen writer these days, but one of the reasons I didn't go into music is because I couldn't have stayed in the closet and used the pronoun "she" in my lyrics. I have always wanted to sing my feelings openly and naturally with the pronoun I prefer and not have to make an issue of it. My discovery by a gay music producer has allowed me to fulfill a dream and record this album of songs. SALT WATER has been popular with dee jays on public radio who initially were curious about my being "a gay Dylan", a guitar playing poet singing directly about the homosexual experience. What some of those dee jays and their listeners discovered is that these are universal, heart felt songs. Some are happy, some are sad, and most of them deal with the particular complexities of finding a lasting relationship. The most frequent adjective people use to describe my music is "haunting". Straight males and women seem to like my music the most, but many gay men have written to tell me that at last, someone is singing something for them in a way they only imagined. Musically, my guitar playing has been influenced by Metheny, Mitchell, McLaughlin and Pete Townsend. Like Sting, my arrangements feature the flavors of a variety of ethnic styles, especially India, Africa and Brazil. My producer is a Brit and his taste for whimsy, ABBA and dance beats made for some interesting contrasts. My singing voice is completely my own and has been called "big", "powerful", "emotional" and "butch". I do feel like I sing from my balls up. I wrote and sing these songs from the deepest place inside me. I hope they make you laugh, swoon, cry and feel connected. For more about me check out: http://www.stonewallsociety.com/clarkcarlton.htm