Singer-songwriter Marc Cohn won the Best New Artist Grammy back in 1991, made two albums after that and then entered into a long-term relationship with writer's block.

Little did he know the cure would come via a bullet in the head.

During a tour stop in Denver in 2005, his van was attacked by carjacker who shot through the windshield, lodging a small-caliber bullet in Cohn's left temple. By some miracle, he escaped serious injury and was released from the hospital the next day.

A few weeks later, while he was recuperating in his Manhattan apartment, he was watching the images of devastation from Hurricane Katrina on TV, and he heard someone say the people in New Orleans were "dancing back from the edge of the grave."

Between these two traumatic events, Cohn's blockage was broke, and the words and music started flowing for "Join the Parade," his first album in nine years.

"Join the Parade" dances through the graveyard with songs that address the fragility of life, while also celebrating the human spirit. Sonically, it's Cohn's most gritty effort, co-produced with Charlie Sexton, with a muddier, bluesy feel.

Among the highlights is an opening track, "Listening to Levon," that has generated airplay on WYEP. In the song, Cohn is sending out an apology to an old girlfriend for being distracted by the great Levon Helm of The Band while she was trying to talk to him in his dad's blue Valiant. As he notes in the following interview, like his breakout and only hit, "Walking in Memphis," it's another testament to his love for music.

Before I got your record, I was in the car one day and heard "Listening to Levon," and even after I parked, I had to stay and listen to the end. I can relate to that, as someone who can tune out the people around me and tune into the music. What sparked that song in you now?

I don't even know what it was. I think I had just read someone else talking about sitting in the car listening to a song and how it brought back all these memories. I mean, I'm constantly reminded about the power of music. I've written about it, too. A lot. "Walking in Memphis" is largely a song about the same thing. This is just a different context and a different story that I made up. A lot of people have had the experience of falling in love with a woman or women in general in their lives and often find that music wins out. It's just a song about that.

Yeah, I once had a girlfriend say, "I think you love Bob Dylan more than me." I was speechless.

And the answer was "yeah," right? [Laughs.] "Unless you can write something like 'Masters of War' and then maybe you'll be in contention."

I know that Levon's daughter Amy was on your record. Do you know if Levon heard the song?

You know. He sent me his record. I sent him mine, and I haven't heard from him. Amy cried when she heard this song, and that was almost enough for me. I'd love to hear from Levon. I'm playing Woodstock in about a month, and I'm going to invite him down.

On to more serious matters. Can you tell me how these two experiences opened you up creatively to write this record?

I really don't know how or why. I had been struggling with writer's block for several years. I had tried everything I could do to get the songwriting channels open, and nothing worked. All I can say is that the music just comes when it's supposed to come. And normally it seems it comes when there is really something pretty important and I would say traumatic, almost, that I need to work through somehow. One of the ways to get through emotional things is by writing. It's what got me to start writing in the first place. Just over time it became my "job."

The truth of the matter is, the thing that made me want to write never changed. So, in this strange way, I have to realize that even though I could craft a song, it's not the kind of songwriting I'm interested in. The songs that got me interested in being a songwriter were the songs that were born of some kind of problem or trauma. It's not the best thing in the world.

What about the joyous things in your life, like when your children were born?

That can. And I have songs about that, but I have four kids, and I wrote those songs when my first kids were born. You can't keep writing those songs. Also, like Neil Young, they asked him that question a long time ago and he gave an answer I really related to: "When I'm happy, why would I spoil the moment by sitting down and writing a song?" When you feel good, you just want to feel good, you don't want to work.

And yet people like Neil Young and Dylan seem to be an open channel.

Exactly. Well, I'm not them. I've had to come to that realization, too. There's one Bob Dylan and one Neil Young. And they are completely open channels. I don't know how they grab as many brilliant songs as they do out of the air. I've had access to that rarefied air very few times.

In the song "Live out the String" you talk about trying to hold onto this feeling, of living every moment to the fullest and trying not to "bitch and moan." How successful can you be at that?

I'm sorry to say, not very. The truth of the matter is, I do still bitch and moan. I still do feel the everyday ups and downs of life. That's what getting through post-traumatic stress is about. What you really want to get back to is normal, and normal for human beings for the most part is not walking around all day being conscious of how grateful we should all be for just waking up. That happens to be true, but it's not the way we're wired.

Even after being shot, after coming a centimeter away from not being here, I would have guessed that my whole life would change, my whole approach to living would change, my whole mind-set would change. But the truth of the matter is, it doesn't. Intermittently, I have more feelings than I used to of gratitude and wonder about what happened to me, and that I made it out alive. But that isn't what I think about all day long.

You've really taken strides in the production here. Like, "Dance Back From the Grave" has that great muddy Tom Waits feel to it. When you sat down with Charlie Sexton, is that what you wanted?

Completely. I knew I wanted to work with a different team of people. I knew that I wanted a little less spit and polish than my other records. I didn't want them to sound as shiny and new. I wanted them to have a little more rawness and dirt to them. I thought that would be more appropriate for the songs. The thing I talked about with Charlie were the players we would get and the fact that as co-producer, I was willing to let go of the idea of making a traditional singer-songwriter record.

Most singer-songwriters make records that are pretty much based on playing and singing. If the guy is a piano player, it's usually the piano that's loudest in the mix. If he's a guitar player, it's the guitar that's loudest, along with the voice, and everything else just falls in and around his performance. I told Charlie if it works better to take the instrument that I wrote it on out of the track, let's take it out and see what we can put in in its place.

Is the closing track, "Life Goes On," supposed to be uplifting -- about acceptance?

For me it is. I sing it sort of earnestly. I was always trying to sing it with a little more irony and humor ...

Like Randy Newman ...

Exactly. But that just doesn't come naturally to me in my voice, unfortunately. If I could have that in my voice, I would have sung it that way. Especially the last couple lines, "You might think it's going to stop/You're closing shop/But life goes on." That's meant to be lighthearted and funny, but my voice always ends up sounding more serious. It is meant to be a hopeful end to the record. It is difficult to think that everything in life is impermanent -- even our own children -- but there's something healing about that thought, too, something liberating. It's sort of a sad song, but it's meant to be healing as well.

The Best New Artist Grammy is often an albatross. How much pressure did that put on you?

It isn't the Grammy that puts pressure on you. It's when you're an artist like me. I'm basically an old album-oriented artist, like Van Morrison or Jackson Browne. Those guys had hits because radio played music like that back then. But it was really all about their albums. The thing that really put pressure on me is that the first time out, as an album guy, a songwriter, I had a pop hit. That led to a Grammy and a lot of expectations about what kind of artist I would be then: 'Oh, well, he's a hit songwriter.' But I'm not. I'm a songwriter who happened to have a pop hit.

That was the thing that put all the pressure on, then the emphasis was on the single, and that's just not who I am. Over the years, because "Memphis" was the only radio hit I've had, I've long since let go of other people's expectations -- and feel no pressure at all. I'd love to have another hit like that, but it's not what I try to do when I go in the studio or sit down to write a song. And it wasn't when I did "Memphis." The thing that people who win that Grammy have in common is that they had a huge hit first time out. Having a huge hit when you're not a pop artist puts that pressure on. That's goes for Tracy Chapman and Bruce Hornsby as well.

It does seem like you get airplay on Triple A stations like WYEP. Does that help?

That kind of station will play my music, but those stations don't sell records. They don't play it enough for people to hear it and go to the record store or download it. It's the pop stations that played "Memphis" years ago that introduced me to a wider audience. There really isn't a venue for the songs I write on pop radio. You'd have to produce a record like mine very differently to get on the radio, and I'm not interested. I'm not interested in sounding generic enough to reach that many people.

First Published: January 24, 2008, 10:00 a.m.