Award winning Boston singer-songwriter Mark Stepakoff returns with his 4th album, 'The Story Behind The Story'. The CD features Stepakoff's trademark mix of wry humorous material and heartbreaking ballads, in the vein of songwriters like Loudon Wainwright and John Prine, to whom he has often been compared. Six of the CD's twelve songs have already won awards from national songwriting contests, including 1st place in the Great American Song Contest, the New Orleans Songwriters Festival songwriting contest and American Songwriter Magazine's lyric contest. Stepakoff's previous two CDs both appeared on the national Folk-DJ chart, reaching as high as number 21 and drawing rave reviews from the likes of Performing Songwriter magazine, which decreed that he 'certainly deserves to be a national folk figure'. On his new CD Stepakoff is backed by some of New England's finest musicians including Mark Erelli, Duke Levine and Joyce Andersen. Of the CD Erelli says: "These are great songs, very John Prine. It's easy to be funny, but much harder to be witty, and make it look [so] effortless." 'Boston-based singer-songwriter Mark Stepakoff certainly deserves to be a national folk figure, up there with the likes of Christine Lavin and Jonathan Richman.' -- Performing Songwriter '[One of Boston's] Top 10 Unknown or Under-Known Acts . . . Songs [that] give the most bang for the buck. Mark possesses an incredible wit and sensitivity. Buy his CD . . . You'll be glad you did.' -- The Noise 'Mark Stepakoff's music is as poignant as it is comical. He's got an acute sense of zeroing in on day-to day occurrences while finding a little bit of humor in it all.' -- Metronome Magazine.
