Enter ‘Fill Up My Tank’, Newman’s first single for 2024, and the sheer amount of detail in it is astonishing. Based in New York, Mark Newman is a singer, songwriter, and guitar player who is boldly carrying all his influences proudly on his sleeve. But this song is particular in not originally Newman’s. ‘Fill Up My Tank’ is Mark Newman’s cover for Chris Armata’s original, which Armata graciously gave to Newman to cover when they were working on it, seeing how it was more in Newman’s style. And thanks to Chris for that.

Thanks to Chris also for providing the song’s only form of percussion, 4-on-the-floor finger snaps. The song is actually only composed of an acoustic guitar shock-full of classic blues rhythm licks, played with a slide, a juicy dobro, Armata’s snaps, and a creamy slick upright bass line delivered by Mike Hill. A terrific mix puts everything together, ensuring that the killer vibes are delivered to us in all their glory.

The fantastic performances from our trio, spearheaded by Newman, ensure a thoroughly enjoyable listen that will effortlessly take you somewhere completely different. A dusty bar in the Texan desert with my hog parked outside, after just filling her up with petrol. I’m grabbing a couple of drinks for the long road ahead on my road trip along the American South. Truly captivating.

Mark Newman’s warm guitar tone sent shivers down my spine right from At The Border’s intro, its open inviting sound is captivating, instantly hooking you and making you pay 100%  attention to his words and melodies. Newman’s expressive emotional vocals mixed with those soothing acoustic chords have a mellow effect that makes the listener takes a step back, and REALLY listen to what he’s saying. At The Border has a smooth structure with a lovely groove, its fluid melodies, bluesy guitar solos, and engaging harmonies all together puts you in an engaging mood, making the listener feels like he/she is a part of the song creating a unique bond that instantly gets it into your “favorites” playlist. Mark Newman‘s seasoned writing skills appear clearly in At The Border, especially in the way he skillfully steered the song’s dynamics, making every instrument contribution counts, all in a solid structure and unbreakable unified mood.

At The Border shows Mark Newman’s sense of melody and mood, the way he crafted such a mellow tune maintaining its lovely streaming sound that flows softly and gently into your ears and then directly into your soul, totally recommended to any music lover! Looking forward to more from Mark Newman, cheers!

Well, these days I notice that many artists when they cover or pay a tribute they actually destroy the spirit of the track, what I liked about Newman’s version is keeping the original song written by the acoustic atmosphere but used his powerful voice alo0ng with smoothing modern mixing elements. Actually, I put the track on repeat because it was very smooth same as the original indeed. Which is one of the few that we find nowadays, right? Because either you find a cool cover better than the original, or a cover that has nothing to do with the original, but I loved his balanced version, especially the slide solo was really impressive and suits the atmosphere of the track perfectly.

Recently, Mark’s distribution company WBA Records secured him a spot on Janis Ian’s “Better Times Project” (based on her song of the same name, written during the pandemic and released earlier this year) which is designed to help artists who have been hurt financially during the pandemic. This initiative encourages artists to submit their versions of her song and then asks that listeners support the artists’ versions. She has posted more than 150 videos so far from a wide variety of diverse artists, breaking all genre and international boundaries.

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