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January 18, 2012 - "GIVE ME THE WORD" is #35 on this week's FMQB AC Chart:
http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=16693
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You've reached the online home of Dan Markell - Singer/Songwriter.

Presently living in Burbank, CA, Dan has created a diverse catalog of music that, for the most part, is classifiable as rock or power pop. He sings and plays guitar, bass and a little bit of keyboards. His songcraft is most often compared to that of Paul McCartney, The Beatles, Squeeze and Elvis Costello with a strong emphasis on clever lyrics and catchy melodies.

You can read about where to find Dan's songs in the discography section. In short, he's had tracks on a number of albums and in films & TV shows, most notably the action-thriller Terminal Velocity (starring Charlie Sheen and Nastassja Kinski) in which you hear Dan sing his own composition "Don't Let Yourself Grow Tired."

Dan has worked with Dennis Diken and Jim Babjak (of The Smithereens), Stevie Salas, Brett Helm (PiL, Doc Tahri) and others including former Wings member Denny Seiwell who plays drums and percussion on Dan's song "You Mighta Made The Sun." So, it's fair to say that most of Markell's work falls into the general category of rock music. And yet he's written some songs (that just might see the light of one of these days) with country western honky tonk man Mike Stinson.

He also had a songwriting collaboration with the late/great Steve Allen (yes, the comedian/musician/composer/author who was the first host of NBC's Tonight Show) in the late 1990s.

On the topic of his work with Allen, Markell says: "Good collaboration is a magical process whereby a brand new song (or script, or movie, or whatever) comes into being and it's something that neither of the two individuals could have dreamed up on their own. I love it when that happens."

"I had the great fortune to get to not only hang out with this legendary Renaissance man of the entertainment business, but write lyrics for a few of the thousands of melodies he wrote. All told, we wrote two dozen songs together over what turned out to be the last couple years of Steve Allen's life. And every one of them has a great melodic and chordal quality that sounds like a classic American standard of the ilk he grew up listening to in the 1920s, 30s and '40s. It's not stuff I could have come up with myself."

You can check out his artist page here:

http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/DanMarkell

And check out the album page here:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/DanMarkell

Also...

On itunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/big-ideas/id368019606?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

On last.fm:

http://www.last.fm/music/Dan+Markell/Big+Ideas