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SOUNDS AND MESSAGES OF THE ’60s REVISITED IN NEW ALBUM BY RENOWNED FOLK-ROCK TRIO GATHERING TIME 

Featuring New Renditions Of Iconic Protest & Socially-Conscious Songs, The Acclaimed Group’s Record Old Friends Will Be Released September 1

Long Island, NY (August 30, 2020) – Protest marches. Riots. Contentious and divisive politics, and a public divided along partisan lines. If it seems like America has suddenly been thrust back into the late 1960s, one band has the soundtrack for it. Gathering Time, the acclaimed Long Island-based folk-rock harmony trio that traces its musical roots to that generation-defining decade, has announced the release of their new album Old Friends on Tuesday, September 1. entirely of Available on all DSPs, the CD will feature reimagined and re-harmonized classics from the era when folk met rock ’n’ roll. 

If the timing seems fortuitous, they hadn’t planned it that way. “We actually started working on this the record almost three years ago,” said Stuart Markus, the group’s rhythm guitarist who shares bass guitar, lead and background vocal duties with bandmates Hillary Foxsong and Gerry McKeveny. “After the success of our last original CD, Keepsake, which took the #1 album, single, and artist honors on the folk radio chart in March, 2016, we wanted to do one in tribute to the artists who influenced us, like The Byrds, Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, and Crosby, Stills & Nash."

When the trio started the album, it seemed like it would be a fairly straightforward recording process. Most of the material were songs they’d cycled regularly in and out of their live sets and knew down cold. “But then someone would come up with a new groove on a song, or we decided to take advantage of the studio capabilities and add extra harmony tracks,” Markus said. “We had tours and specialty shows that required rehearsing which took away from recording time; the studio computer had a hard drive melt-down and needed to be rebuilt; family issues came up, one of our member’s day-job schedule got onerous. After a while it felt like some unseen force was holding us back saying, ‘It’s not time to release this just yet.’”

One thing that was a conscious decision, according to the band, was to include a number of socially conscious songs from the era that have gained renewed relevance to current times. “Turn! Turn! Turn!” leads off the album. “It speaks to the fact that life runs in cycles and history is like a pendulum,” Markus says. “What we’re going through now, racial strife, civil unrest, economic and political crises, we’ve endured as a nation and a society, and as a human race, before. We can get through this — hopefully emerging the better.”

Amid the Black Lives Matter protests, the racially charged reactions, the riots and the sometimes vitriolic polarization of public health, the group decided to release “Get Together,” a song made famous by the Youngbloods in 1969, as an advance single. “It seemed a message that needed to be heard again, that what unites us is greater than what divides us, and that our better angels are stronger than our worst demons as a society,” Markus said. “The reaction we've gotten from folk DJs has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic.” The song came out as the #1 single on the Folk Alliance International Folk DJ chart this July.



Other songs on the album include “Abraham, Martin & John,” an elegy to assassinated leaders who took strong stands on civil rights; “At 17” addresses the issue of teenage rejection and depression, “Hazy Shade of Winter” and “River” speak to feelings of disconnectedness and loneliness during the holiday season, and “Hurry Sundown” is about the need to put work down, enjoy leisure time and recharge to face tomorrow. 



Not that it’s all heavy and serious. “You Were On My Mind” is about the unbridled joy of falling in love, and the album ends on a positive note, CSNY’s “Carry On,” with its promise, “Love is coming to us all.”

Old Friends is Gathering Time’s 5th studio album and was recorded at Wrong Side of the Tracks Studio in Oyster Bay, NY and produced by the trio themselves with engineer Ted Stoforos. Their previous album 'Keepsake' took the #1 album and single honors on the folk radio chart in March 2016 and received #1 artist honors that same month, with 6 songs in the top-25. Their previous releases also charted in the top five with 'When One Door Closes ...' hitting #3 on the Folk-DJ Chart for January 2014 with three songs in the Top-20 and 'Red Apples and Gold' landing at #5 on the Folk DJ Chart and #12 on the Roots Music Report Americana Chart for October 2012.




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