Richard Marx, Las Vegas Sun, Aug, 22, 1997

Richard hits his Marx Lisa Ferguson Friday, Aug. 22, 1997 | 9:22 a.m. Got a cause? A plight you're trying to promote? Richard Marx may be your man. In recent years, the pop singer-songwriter ("Don't Mean Nothing," "Should've Known Better," "Hazard") has lent his time, support and even his royalty checks to a pair of issues near and dear to his heart. Earlier this year, 33-year-old Marx teamed-up with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for the "Fight for the Arts" campaign, to "put pressure" on state and local governments to raise funding for art and music programs in public schools throughout the country. "I think a lot of people just assume that music and art in school is sort of a frill, that it's something more entertainment-based and that's so not the case," Marx said recently, calling from his home in Chicago. He performs poolside at the Rio hotel-casino Saturday night. Marx explains how college testing organizations have conducted studies "that prove that kids who are exposed to music and the arts (education) consistently test higher on the SATs. "What we're finding out," he says, "is that kids who are exposed to art and music at a young age tend to be brighter kids, and our No. 1 job as a society, I think, is to raise the brightest generation of kids that we can." Through the speaking and singing engagements he's down at schools nationwide, Marx, who is married to actress Cynthia Rhodes and is the father of three young sons, has seen firsthand the impact these programs have on students. Also the disheartening effects when they're dropped from school schedules. "I ran into some string players from a school in Georgia," he recalls, noting that they had recently won a national music competition and, as a result, had performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. "About three weeks after the performance," he says, "the school that they go to cut the music program because they couldn't afford it. It makes me angry more than anything else because you're taking a bunch of kids who are excelling in something and creating a path for themselves. "I think the No. 1 problem we have with youths is that ... some of the kids do not have a focus. So you take kids who do have a passion for something and you're basically telling them it doesn't matter. Then we all sit around and scratch our heads and wonder why the youth of this generation is in the state it's in." Several "Fight for the Arts" projects are already in the works. The proceeds from "Until I Find You Again," the first single off Marx's fifth and most recent album "Flesh and Bone," have been donated to various "arts-in-education organizations." Besides featuring poetry and artwork by high school students in "Flesh and Bone's" CD book, Marx has agreed to select and produce tunes written by five young songwriters, to be released on a CD sometime next spring. On another front, Marx, whose grandmother died of emphysema, has for years also been outspoken about the dangers of smoking. "I was one of those people that years before the lawsuits (against tobacco companies) ... I was screaming about second-hand smoke." The subject of smokers' rights, he says, "has never made any sense to me. Smoking is the only habit that if you light up in my presence, you're effecting my health as well as your own." Marx's lastest crusade, however, is a more private one: To get his music the recognition it deserves. Best known for his romantic ballads ("Right Here Waiting," "Endless Summer Nights," "Now and Forever") several tracks on "Flesh and Bone" resonate the rhythm-and-blues influences of Marx's past -- Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass and Earth, Wind and Fire. "I gave into the music that I've loved my whole life," he says about the CD. "I just went with the music that felt the most natural for me to sing." One of the tunes, "Breathless," was one Marx had originally written for James Ingram over a decade ago, but it was never released. "It was in a handful of songs that had never seen the light of day," Marx explains. "People for years, more than anybody my father (pianist and music arranger Dick Marx), just constantly said, 'You've got to record that song.' That was one of the cornerstones of the album." But somehow, when it comes time for his record company, Capitol, to chose the singles, they usually go with the ballads. Case in point: "Until I Find You" is one of only two or three ballads on the album," Marx says. "The rest of the album is not that and yet the record company ... went with a no-brainer. That's been the case with me at the company over the years." His second album, "Repeat Offender," was released in '89 with the weepy, No. 1 single "Right Here Waiting." It was followed by the lovesick tune, "Angelia" which peaked at No. 4. "That sort of set the tone and radio then expected that from me," he says. "Not to say that I'm not proud of 'Until I Find You Again,' but I wish they had told a different story out of the box. It seems like I have been tagged, labeled, and only time will get me out of that." Noted Terri Horak of Billboard magazine: "Though the album has a more rhythmic groove than past Marx releases ... Capitol is counting on Marx's history as a hitmaker to launch this set." Then sprinkle a little salt into the wound: "It's clearly not the time for pop artists right now," Marx admits. "With the exception of Celine Dion, there's really nobody kicking (butt) right now. "If it was just me, I'd be really panicked. But I see Bryan Adams, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Jon Bon Jovi, all of us struggling to get on the radio as much as we used to be. The irony is that I truly believe this is the best work I've ever done. "When the time isn't for you," Marx says, "you just have to hold tight on the raft and wait for the waves to calm down. It's not like I can go out and do a Spice Girls (type of ) record or make a rap record. I would never do something I wasn't musically proud of just to have another hit." archive