Merciful [CD]

Gerry Beckley - Merciful [CD]

“Like trains forever leaving stations, merciful are these stories we spin,” sings Gerry Beckley on the title track to his latest Blue Elan Records solo album, Merciful, a dark-laced song penned by noted Scandinavian jazz trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær. That sentiment captures the elegiac spirit of the 13-song collection, produced by Beckley with frequent collaborator and lyricist Jeff Larson, which looks both back and forward with an appreciation of the past and an acknowledgement of impending mortality. Beckley is the co-founding member of the multi-platinum band America. Beckley wrote and sang lead on such successful America singles as “Sister Golden Hair,” “I Need You,” “Daisy Jane” and the Russ Ballard-penned “You Can Do Magic.” His latest solo work, Merciful, is a timeless, personal work that realizes our own very limited span on earth at the same time as it seizes the possibilities while we’re still here; a most worthy addition to the classic Gerry Beckley oeuvre, the light and dark perfectly calibrated.