In the years that preceded the release of his new Decca album Join the Parade, Marc Cohn passed through several life-changing events.  These events are what enabled him to reconnect with his songwriting muse, and they are in large part, what make Join the Parade an artistic, insightful and soulful statement.Despite his time away from the recording studio, the acclaimed singer/songwriter, winner of the 1991 Grammy Award for Best New Artist, has continued to perform live and his audiences have remained steadfast.  He en¬dured the pain of divorce, but in  2002 he married news anchor Elizabeth Vargas.  He struggled with writer's block and sought to break through it with a month-long tour in the summer of 2005.  The gigs went great until the night of August 7, 2005. That's when Marc Cohn was shot in the head during a random attempted carjacking after a concert in Denver.Even though the bullet was lodged near his left temple, Marc never lost consciousness and walked out of the hospital the next day.  Three weeks later, while recovering at home in New York from post-traumatic stress disorder, Cohn watched the city of New Orleans destroyed by flooding in the aftermath of Hurri¬cane Katrina."I got home a couple of days after being shot," said Cohn.  "And then Hurricane Katrina hit a few weeks later.  I'm in the middle of my own crisis, and now I'm watching all these haunting images on television of thousands of people suffering through a far more horrific event.   And then something I never could have predicted happened.  It was like my song writing receiver got flipped into the on position.  Everywhere I turned, in conversations I overheard, even in get well emails I was receiving, song ideas started coming.  For several weeks, I'd be working on 2-3 songs simultaneously. And these songs weren't polite about their sudden presence either; they insisted on being written."Out of all this, and all that came before, comes Join the Parade, a recording that is being called Marc's most accomplished and compelling album to date. Cohn has translated some of his most complex and private emotions into lyrical song-poetry and then set those words to music of remarkable depth, toughness, and complexity. In doing so, Marc has created a work that is certain to touch a universal chord of memory and feeling.   The music leads us on: Indeed, its deep grooves, layered textures, and soulful singing make this journey a sensual pleasure. Marc and album co-producer Charlie Sexton (Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams) have enlisted an exceptional supporting cast that includes members of Cohn's road band (guitarist Shane Fontayne, drummer Jay Bellerose), top session players (drummers Jim Keltner and Charley Drayton, guitarist Danny Kortchmar), and such bold-face "name" guests as Tom Petty keyboard ace Benmont Tench and vocalists Shelby Lynne, N'Dea Davenport, and the Holmes