Music fans are walking in Morristown, NJ this Thursday, November 13, 2025 evening toward MPAC — the town’s jewel of a theater — for a performance by singer/songwriters Marc Cohn and Shawn Colvin.
As a youngster, Marc Cohn was obsessed with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Band, and Van Morrison and started learning guitar and writing songs in junior high school. While studying at Oberlin College, he also taught himself piano.
After playing piano on Tracy Chapman’s Crossroads, Cohn signed with Atlantic Records and released his eponymous debut solo album featuring “Walking in Memphis.” Although the song was nominated for Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal performance, Cohn won the 1992 Grammy for Best New Artist. In 2010, his album Listening Booth: 1970 became Cohn’s highest-charting album.
Early in 2025, Cohn publicly acknowledged that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease five years earlier.
Shawn Colvin started playing guitar when she was 10 and made her first public performance at the age of 15. After working as a member of a Western swing band in Austin, TX — the city she now calls home — she moved to New York City where she recorded her 1989 debut album, Steady On. The album earned her a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Recording and helped her to amass a loyal fanbase.
In 1996, Colvin released her breakthrough album, A Few Small Repairs, which contained the Top 10 hit, “Sunny Came Home,” and earned her two Grammys — one for Record of the Year and one for Song of the Year. She published her autobiography, Diamond in the Rough, in 2012 and in 2019 recorded an all-acoustic version of Steady On to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the album’s initial release.
Inside the MPAC auditorium, the lights dim and percussionist Joe Bonidio and keyboardist Eric Finland take the stage along with Shawn Colvin and Marc Cohn who bow before launching into “Tougher Than the Rest.” Accompanied by the strumming of their acoustic guitars, Colvin and Cohn trade off singing lead on the verses of this Bruce Springsteen ballad before harmonizing on the tune’s “Well, if you’re looking for love/Honey, I’m tougher than the rest” coda.
Concertgoers cheer and Cohn, 66, deadpans, “This is a song I take out when the holidays are about to come because it’s all about guilt and shame — so enjoy.” Rhythmic guitar strumming, Finland’s electronic keyboard, and Bonidio’s African-style percussion accompany Cohn’s soft and bluesy vocal on the folk-rocker, “Don’t Talk to Her at Night.”
Cohn reveals, “This is from my Listening Booth: 1970 album,” prior to delivering what he calls a “late night jazzy version” of The Box Tops’ “The Letter.” Accompanied by a re-harmonized chord pattern, Cohn soulfully sings, “Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane/Ain’t got time to take a fast train,” before Finland plays a jazzy keyboard solo and Colvin and the audience join in singing on the song’s “My baby wrote me a letter” refrain.
Cohn leaves the stage to Colvin, 69, who acknowledges, “That was very soulful — that last one — but you’re not gonna get that from me. I’m very folky. I write bummer love songs in minor keys.” Here, she slips into “Trouble,” where her guitar playing rhythmically propels the song forward as she wistfully sings, “I go to the trouble like a magnet/That’s where I’ll be/Trouble is just a place to sing/It’s what you need.”’
Music lovers eagerly applaud and Colvin tunes her guitar as she says, “This is not in a minor key but don’t be fooled,” before her formidable guitar skills perfectly frame her expressive voice while she earnestly croons her memorable folk-rock story song, “Polaroids.”
Referring to her next number as “a murder ballad,” Colvin performs her hit, “Sunny Came Home.” Telling her tale about a woman who burns down her house to escape her past, she gives a powerful performance via her expressive and soulful voice and rhythmic acoustic guitar accompaniment which is expertly backed by Finland’s electric piano and Bonidio’s box drumming.
Audience members cheer and Colvin responds, “Thank you so much — Sunny’s a badass!” as Bonidio and Finland leave the stage and she dives into a solo version of “Diamond in the Rough.” With its twangy fingered guitar accompaniment, Colvin croons on the captivating chorus, “You’re shining/I can see you/You’re smiling/That’s enough,” as the arrangement muscles forward like a freight train on this rhythmic folk rocker before ending with enthusiastic applause, hoots, and hollers.
“Please welcome back Marc Cohn,” announces Colvin as Cohn returns to the stage. After a fan calls out, “I love you, Marc,” and he responds, “I love you back,” he explains, “I covered this on my first record,” before powering into a bluesy version of Willie Dixon’s “29 Ways” where the audience claps along as Cohn ad libs and Finland contributes a boogie-woogie piano solo.
Cohn takes a seat at the keyboard and introduces a song he wrote for David Crosby. His rolling piano playing accompanies “Old Soldier” where he soulfully sings, “Listen old soldier wherever you are/The hills or the valleys come near or come far/They say youth is a treasure we waste when we’re young/So come down from the place where your medals are hung.”
Cohn reveals, “I’m going to do a newish version of an old song,” as Finley accompanies him on piano on “True Companion,” a popular wedding song where he cries, “I’m asking you to be my true companion/Be my true companion/My true companion.”
Getting back to the piano, Cohn instructs, “Sing along with me if you could,” explaining, “It reconnects me to this song when I hear it through you,” as he steps into “Walking in Memphis.” Cohn sings, “Put on my blue suede shoes and I boarded the plane,” before the crowd takes over singing, “Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues in the middle of the pouring rain,” and Finland and Bonidio join in on their instruments. Cohn says, “Repeat after me,” and the audience echo-sings as Cohn improvises on the lyrics, “They got catfish on the table” and “They got gospel in the air,” prior to standing and cheering at the conclusion.
Colvin returns to the stage exclaiming, “I think you guys were the best singers!” as Cohn and Co. accompany her on the folk-rocker, “That Don’t Worry Me Now.”
Cohn follows up by handling the lead on “Walk Through the World” which has the crowd energetically clapping along on his rhythmic gospel-infused number.
Fans cheer and Cohn responds, “Thanks for coming to hear us tonight!” as the pair ends the show with Bob Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.” Singing, “You’re gonna have to leave me, now I know/But I’ll see you in the sky above/In the tall grass in the ones I love/You’re gonna make me lonesome when you go,” the duo leaves concertgoers standing and cheering on their feet.
The quartet takes a group bow and exits the stage before returning to sing together in heartfelt harmony on the lovely Leonard Cohen ballad, “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.”
Concertgoers cheer and applaud and Colvin and Cohn conclude tonight’s show with an ethereal rendition of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic.”
Incorporating snippets of Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey,” “Brown-Eyed Girl,” and “Crazy Love” into the arrangement, Cohn announces, “I think this could go on for another six or seven minutes but it’s time to go.” Colvin responds, “Where could we go?” and Cohn vocally replies, “Down to the mystic,” before the two whisper, “Down to the mystic,” and fans stand as they avidly hoot, holler, and cheer the pair off.
To learn more about Marc Cohn, please go to marccohnmusic.com. For more on Shawn Colvin, please click on shawncolvinmusic.com. For info on great upcoming performances at MPAC — including Peabo Bryson, Sheena Easton, Ruben Studdard and Ilya Serov in Home for the Holidays on December 3; LeAnn Rimes’ Greatest Hits Christmas Tour on December 4; The Irish Tenors on December 5; and Chris Isaak on December 6 — please click on mayoarts.org.
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