Mike Berman: “Ghosts” (2025) CD Review

Mike Berman is a singer and songwriter based in the Los Angeles area, where he hosts a monthly music series titled Acoustic Jewels, helping to keep the important folk music tradition alive. He released Where I’m From in 2023, the city playing an important role in the songs. In fact, that album’s first track is titled “Drive,” and it tackles the most common (and often hated) activity here in L.A., which is driving. His affection for this great city is heard in his delivery of every line, and southern California informs his sound. And now his new album, Ghosts, finds him addressing other topics, moving to other realms, yet with a sound that is still largely rooted in that wonderful southern California tradition. The album features all original material, and it was produced, recorded and mixed by Ed Tree, a musician who has played with Spencer Davis and David Serby, among many others. On this album, in addition to producing, Ed Tree plays several instruments, including electric guitar, 12-string guitar, slide guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, mandolin, harmonium, Mellotron and celeste. Marty Axelrod plays piano and organ, and Scott Babcock is on drums and percussion. There are also a few guests joining Mike Berman on specific tracks.

The album’s first track, “There Were People Here,” does find its subject and inspiration in the land of southern California. It  has an interesting, captivating opening, featuring some nice work by Fred McCall on wooden flute, and that helps set the tone and place. “There were people here/Not so different from you and me/They loved their families/There were people here,” Mike Berman sings early in this song. I’m finding that people are now putting in more of an effort to acknowledge those who lived on this land long before California became a state. At least they do so in the arts community, using names like “Gabrielinos” to refer to them. But what these people actually called themselves, we don’t know, and Mike Berman refers to that in this song’s lyrics. And more could be done, surely. “There still are people here/Seems there are debts that we could try to pay/Still we mostly look the other way/From those people here.” This song has a gentle vibe, and the voices of the ghosts come through in the music, seem to live within this song, which is remarkable. This track features some beautiful work on flute.

Jay Dee Maness, known for his work with The Byrds on the great Sweetheart Of The Rodeo album, as well as for his work in the Desert Rose Band, joins Mike Berman on “No Luck At All” and delivers some really good work on pedal steel. Of course, we’d expect nothing less from him. His playing helps create the tone and atmosphere of this song, this one telling a story. Mike Berman’s vocal delivery on this track reminds me a bit of some of Fred Small’s work. This song was co-written by Debora Ewing, and it takes us away from California: “And underneath this Texas sky/We wait for it to fall/There’s no luck/In these stars at all.” Darice Bailey contributes some wonderful backing vocal work. Then “Blanket Of Light (Oh, Mercy)” begins with some thoughtful, wonderful work on guitar. It soon takes on a rather cheerful, almost magical sound, in part because of the presence of mandolin. When I saw Mike Berman perform several months ago, this was one of the songs that really stood out for me. It’s a beautiful and engaging song, featuring one of the album’s best vocal performances. “He knew this could be forever/As she touched her hands to his hair/He closed his eyes and counted to ten/When he looked, she was no longer there.” Scott Babcock adds some excellent and effective work on percussion. I loved this song when I first heard it, and love it even more now.

Mike Berman grabs our attention by delivering the first few lines of “A Gentle Song” a cappella. This one begins in the past, in his mother’s childhood, giving us a sense of what childhood was like then. In the second stanza he takes us into the present, and though the feel of the song is the same, the description is jarring in its contrast. “Now I drive my kids every place they go/They use their phones to let me know/Where they are and what they need from me/It doesn’t feel safe to cross the street/The angry cars, the city’s heat/And endless danger’s all/That I can see.” But it is what follows those lines that is the true heart of the piece, and is what makes this song special: “We don’t understand what happened to/A distant world that we once knew/And we wonder how we let it go so wrong/So we grab their hands and we hold on tight/We comfort them when they cry at night.” Childhood has certainly changed, and so has parenthood. These days a parent cannot truly offer his or her children any real safety, but is of course desperate to do so. This theme is developed strongly before the song goes on to address school shootings. “So we drive to the line/Waiting anxiously for hours/We know that when the bullets fly/Somebody’s kid is gonna die/Silently we pray/It isn’t ours.” How are these things allowed to happen again and again? I’m not the first to say this (check out Ellis Paul’s “When Angels Fall”), but clearly people in this country love their guns more than they love their children.

I hear a kind of wonderfully sad humor in the opening lines of “I Just Don’t Have What It Takes”: “You tell me/That by now I should be over you/You never meant to make me love you/So I should give myself a break.” Sometimes we know what we should do, what we need to do, but still can’t do it. And how does one go about fixing a broken heart anyway? “Right now it seems/I’m never gonna be all right again/I can’t hold myself together/I just don’t have what it takes.” And speaking of that southern California sound, this song offers a little nod to Stephen Stills in the lines, “Some guys, they just go from heart to heart/They love the one they’re with/But I could never be that way.” That’s followed by “Wonderland.” I think there is a desire among many folks these days to go back to some earlier time, to some magical place of childhood, for the current reality is just so horrid and ugly. But as they say, You can’t go home again, and in this song he imagines that time has marched on in that fantasy realm too, and maybe things aren’t so good there either. “The White Rabbit has arthritis/I hear he no longer runs/He sits and watches Fox News/And collects exotic guns.” We can’t return, except in our minds. That is the only place it still exists. This song contains a nod to Bob Dylan, and there is a Byrds sound in some of the guitar work. Ed Tree plays a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar, the type that Roger McGuinn used.

“Tryin’ To Go Home” is dedicated to Tyre Nichols, a man who was murdered by the police in Tennessee in 2023. The song tells the story of that night, and it is told, in part, from his perspective. “I’m just trying to go home/I’m trying to go home/I want to put aside my weary day/And find a bit of rest.” Tyre Nichols was less than a mile from his home when the police stopped him and killed him. Those lines are particularly effective because they could be sung by anyone who wants to just be home after a long day at work. Most of us have just traffic and exhaustion to contend with, not police violence. Darice Bailey adds some pretty harmony work. The album then concludes with “In The Clear Morning.”  Check out the song’s opening lines: “In the clear morning/At the end of night/All the fires burn smaller/And the ghosts fade into light.” Yes, it’s a hopeful, optimistic number, just the sort of thing we need as we each face the coming day and days.

CD Track List

1. There Were People Here
2. No Luck At All
3. Blanket Of Light (Oh, Mercy)
4. A Gentle Song
5. I Just Don’t Have What It Takes
6. Wonderland
7. Tryin’ To Go Home
8. In The Clear Morning

Ghosts is scheduled to be released on April 1, 2025 on Tanager Way Records.