Artist: Gary Marks

Album: Crossroads

Release Date: April 18, 2026

American singer-songwriter, composer, and novelist Gary Marks will release Crossroads, a landmark vinyl album spanning five decades of songwriting, as an official Record Store Day UK & Europe exclusive on April 18, 2026. Pressed on vinyl only and limited to 500 copies, Crossroads marks the first curated release to bring together the full scope of Marks’s long-overlooked body of work.

Released via Lantern Heights Records, Crossroads is both a rediscovery and a reckoning — a rare opportunity to encounter a songwriter whose music bridges generations and whose lyrics, written decades ago, speak directly to the political, environmental, and moral tensions of the present day.

Gary Marks emerged in the 1970s with three self-produced albums — Gathering, Upon Oanda’s Wing, and Thoughts of Why — now cult titles among vinyl collectors in Europe and Japan. Those early recordings featured musicians who would later become giants of modern jazz, including John Scofield, Paul McCandless (Oregon), David Samuels, Mark Isham, Art Lande, and Michael Cochrane. His debut album Gathering marked the first ever studio appearance of a then 21-year-old John Scofield.

While his early releases gained critical praise, Marks stepped away from touring in the mid-1980s, choosing instead to continue writing and recording independently. Over the next decades, he released eight albums quietly through his own website, building a devoted following while remaining largely outside the industry’s touring-driven spotlight — until now.

Crossroads is the first time this extensive catalogue has been formally introduced to a wider audience. The album includes nine previously unreleased tracks, alongside selections that trace Marks’s evolution as a songwriter whose work addresses democracy, environmental responsibility, equality, and personal conscience. The music blends modern rock songwriting with jazz-influenced arrangements and world-class musicianship, including performances by John Scofield, Paul McCandless, David Samuels, and rock guitarist Stef Burns.

Rather than a nostalgia project, Crossroads feels strikingly contemporary. Marks’s songs were never written to chase trends or commercial success, but to make sense of the world — a quality that now places his work firmly in the present cultural moment.

As one reviewer noted, “Gary Marks was, and still is, a truly unique voice in rock — and therefore was ignored by the industry power brokers who only think in dollar bills, not artistry” (Dusty Groove Inc).

Alongside his music career, Marks is also a published novelist with seventeen novels, including the socio-political historical fiction The Dance and the Diamond Sky. His dual life as a songwriter and author informs a body of work unified by lyrical depth, narrative ambition, and moral inquiry.

Crossroads is living history — a reminder of what songwriting sounded like before music became content, and why albums, ideas, and voices with something to say still matter.

Follow Gary Marks

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garymarksmusic/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/garymarksmusic/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/intl-fr/artist/6jOwhy1TtDo8y5gQG4KKNr

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@garymarksmusic/videos

Website: https://www.garymarksmusic.com/