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One Sunday morning in the early '70s, a youngster in Cleveland caught an earful of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and his life was never to be the same. That kid was Marc Cohn, and soon after that morning, he bought everything Morrison had released to date, along with works by Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne. Soon thereafter, an older brother taught him a Ray Charles tune on the piano, and he joined a cover band, Doanbrook Hotel. He sang with them from junior high school until he left home for Oberlin College. All the while, Cohn learned to play guitar and was dabbling with the craft of songwriting, since the cover band played everything but the kind of songs he loved so dearly. At Oberlin, Cohn taught himself to play piano and a lasting bond formed. After transferring to UCLA, he hit the Los Angeles coffeehouse circuit. Cohn then made yet another move, this time to New York to be with his fiancée, and he formed the Supreme Court, a 14-piece band complete with horn section. Putting unu...