14th June 2017: Offbeat Magazine previews ‘Scarecrow Ray’ from Joel Harrison’s ‘The Other River’ for release next month

Joel Harrison’s ‘Scarecrow Ray’ from forthcoming release ‘The Other River’ has been previewed in Offbeat Magazine. Click here to learn more about the album.

“This song is based on an experience I had long, long ago on a Greyhound bus traveling across Texas,” Harrison explains. “A rail-thin man sat down next to me who was mute. He had no bags, and was dressed in threadbare clothes. He tried to converse with me with his hands. He began to have an epileptic seizure, and I literally stuck my hand down his throat (twice) and kept him from suffocating. His mute suffering, mixed with his gentle and lovely smile, his terrible helplessness, seemed mythic to me. Here was the suffering of all the world in one lonely man, and the whole bus looked away, while I, an innocent young lad, fought off my fear and helped him. Would I do it today? I don’t know. Most of us turn away from the suffering of others. We can’t help it. He was thrown off the bus in the middle of nowhere.”

Click here to hear ‘Scarecrow Ray’ and read the preview in Offbeat Magazine