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Commercially speaking, Suzanne Vega and Marc Cohn are past their prime. Both scored hits as the pop music landscape was making the transition from synth-heavy dance tracks and hair metal to grunge, gangster rap and organic rock. Vega's "Luka" reached No. 3 in 1987. Cohn's "Walking in Memphis" peaked at 13 in 1991.
"The whole alternative scene was happening, and the riot grrrl [feminist punk] thing was happening," Vega says. "A lot of things in music were kind of being turned over on their heads, which was sort of fun."
"I remember when I was a kid, I met somebody who was 50, and they seemed absolutely ancient. I don't feel 50 at this moment. To me, age is really just a state of mind. I know you hear that all the time, but guess what? It's really true."
They may have faded from the pages of Billboard, but Cohn and Vega have continued to pump out quality albums that dedicated fans continue to eat up. Without the weight of a record company wishing for a hit single, they now pursue passion projects. Vega is rerecording songs from her seven studio albums with a more raw, stripped down sound. The series, called "Close Up," will be released in four volumes beginning with "Love Songs," which came out Tuesday.
"I wanted to own the masters myself and release them directly to an audience," Vega remarks. "I felt like it was something that they might like. And instead of thinking about each album separately, I wanted to group them in themes."
Cohn is also returning to his singer-songwriter roots with a cover record of songs from 1970. The year saw a shift in popular song. As the psychedelic movement was fading and punk and disco had yet to gear up, artists countered the war raging in Vietnam with albums for a quiet room — like Van Morrison's "Moondance" and Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman."
"It was really a huge year for me. There were a number of records that came out that made me stand up and take notice," says Cohn.
Both artists will perform at Strathmore on Friday in support of these albums. They may not seem similar, but the artists believe their sounds mesh well together. This isn't the first time the two have toured together; they first paired up in 2005.
"In a way, I think it's an interesting chemical balance between the two of us," Cohn says. "It's hard to explain, but in ways I wouldn't have thought of, it works."
Don't expect a full band. Their acoustic sets will feature only one other musician, which is fine by Vega. In mid-1970 Los Angeles, she adored the introspective troubadours that flooded AM radio. Her friends loved David Bowie; "Blonde on Blonde"-era Bob Dylan inspired her. By the time Vega sought a record deal in the early 1980s, the pop-folk craze was all but dead.
"So many of my friends were like, ‘She's really missed the boat. She keeps listening to this old stuff,'" she recalls. "Anytime anything happened, I felt like it was a huge step forward. In retrospect, it wasn't as though I needed to sell seven million albums. I just wanted to write the best I could and get as big of an audience as I could."
"Luka" was no fluke. A&M, Vega's record company at the time, saw potential in the song and brought in producers like Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye to give the tune that hit song feel. Vega had been playing it acoustically for years, and claims it never stood out during her shows.
"There was a huge machine behind it. It was not an accident," she says. "My thought was, ‘Good luck.' I was going to do the best vocal I could do, but the song was already done. It was really out of my hands."
"Solitude Standing," the album that produced "Luka," eventually sold three million copies, and the Dylan disciple suddenly became a bankable jewel in the eyes of the suits. The pressure to write another Top 10 smash was impossible to ignore. Three years later, she got it — sort of.
In 1990, the English group DNA remixed "Tom's Diner," the a cappella opener to "Solitude Standing." Instead of suing, A&M bought the song and Vega encouraged the company to release it as a single. By December, it was the No. 5 song in the country. Even if you don't know the name behind the voice, the droning chorus — doo doo da da, doo doo da da — is instantly recognizable.
"I thought it was very funny and I was relieved that it was not a parody," says Vega. "I was sort of dreading listening to it because there had been a lot of parodies of ‘Luka.' When I heard ‘Tom's Diner,' I thought, ‘Oh, I really like this.' They remixed it and put this groove behind it, but it's still my voice."
She continued to release critically respected material over the next two decades, but was never able to match the chart success of her early work. Today, musicians view her as a trailblazer for the female songwriters who followed — Tracy Chapman, Sarah McLachlan, the Indigo Girls and Sean Colvin. In 1997, she joined the estrogen-only Lilith Fair tour.
"People didn't think what I did could sell. Then they saw that there was an audience for women who wrote lyrics and played guitar," he says. "I didn't understand why there weren't more women in music."
Unlike "Luka," Cohn's big hit was more of a fluke. The big albums of 1991 included Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" and Nirvana's "Nevermind." No one expected a hit song to come from a soulful thirty-something with a full mustache and beard.
"It was a lifelong dream," he recalls. "To be on Atlantic [Records] was a fantastic honor. I just wanted to make a great record, and an honest, authentic record."
It appeared as though Cohn had come out of nowhere, but he had been plugging away for the better part of a decade — first in Los Angeles, then in New York.
"The frustration level got very high, especially by the time I reached 26 or 27 years old. I knew all of my heroes had started their recording careers when they were very young. James Taylor was maybe 21 when ‘Sweet Baby James' came out," he says.
Between his 1991 self-titled debut and 2007's "Join the Parade," Cohn released only two albums. He takes his time on every release, but there were other reasons for the long gaps. A painful divorce from his first wife took a toll and, oh yeah, he was shot in the head by a would-be carjacker in 2005. The bullet left no permanent damage, and Cohn hit the road just six months later.
"It felt a little wobbly, but it was good for me to do it," he says.
Cohn wishes there were more big hits spread throughout his cannon. To many, he's the "Walking in Memphis" guy. But the glass is half full. The song earned him countless fans that wouldn't have discovered his music otherwise.
"There's some people who end up with hits that they didn't like," he says. "I'm very proud of that song. I don't think it's my best, but I think it's a good, well-written song."
See Suzanne Vega and Marc Cohn Friday at 8 p.m. at the Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda. Tickets range from $25 to $48. Call 301-581-5100 or visit www.Strathmore.org.
