Mark Urso Band

WESTERLY — Westerly native Mark Urso says his new music CD, “Share The Moon,” set for release on Halloween, may be “filled with G-rated spookiness” but there’s a serious message underneath.

Urso, who is set to open tonight for Billy Gilman at the Knickerbocker Café, said the most unique thing about his new creation is that it’s both a music CD and a 200-page book.

Urso, who grew up in the communications business, having spent 23 years in local radio with WERI AM and 99.3 FM, and having run a conference field-recording company, said the inspiration for the project comes straight from “A Candle Lit,” his self-published book about addiction and recovery.
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“I had found my way through some harrowing experiences,” he said, “and music — both playing and listening — was how I stayed sane.”

It was while describing his experiences, he said, and “trying to help people” in the “treatise on mental illness,” that he learned an important lesson.

While he talks about how to recover in “A Candle Lit,” what he discovered was that “dancing, making music, singing and being positive” was really the message.

“My own message told me to make a CD,” he added. “I re-shaped my ideas so people who understandably might not jump into reading a medically-bent book might listen to a fun, spooky-themed rock CD, just in time for Halloween, and enjoy my message among the rhythm and melodies, and with a bitter-but-humorous edge,” he said.

“I want them to smile, buy, have a ton of fun and hopefully learn a little while they’re laughing,” added Urso.

“Believe me,” Urso added,” “the spookiness is in there!”

In the process of creating the CD and book, the 54-year-old Urso said he thought about old-school vinyl records “that had all the lyrics, and plenty of room for information.”

“I used the novel for this, as a companion to the CD,” he said. “Not only does it have a really fun 120-page back story to the songs, which I think is unique in the industry, but I put the lyrics to the eleven songs I wrote, as if poems, in the book after the novel, and even recording experiences and personal information I could never have fit onto the CD package. It all makes for a much more interesting experience.”

“Also in the package,” Urso says, “will be a second CD, ‘East Coast Represent,’” a tribute to the “great young musicians I’ve met over the past two years making music in my home studio, who I wanted to give some recognition.”

“People can learn with a smile and a dance,” he added.

Urso will be on stage tonight at 8.

— Nancy Burns-Fusaro - The Westerly Sun Newspaper