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David Forman

Not just a brilliant lyricist…one of the most interesting writers of the Seventies.
Rolling Stone

In 1976, Rolling Stone declared David Forman a songwriter on the same level as Bruce Springsteen, Warren Zevon, and Tom Waits, comparing his vocals to Curtis Mayfield and Smokey Robinson. His self-titled debut album for Arista Records, produced by Joel Dorn, was hailed as “an artistic success” before Forman seemingly vanished from the music world.

But David Forman didn’t vanish—he recorded a second album.

David Forman

Who You Been Talking To

Recorded for Arista Records in Los Angeles in 1977 but never released, Who You Been Talking To is a revelation—a lost masterpiece of blue-eyed soul and literary street poetry produced by the legendary Jack Nitzsche and featuring an all-star cast of L.A. session players including Ry Cooder, Jim Keltner, David Lindley, Fred Tackett, Tim Drummond, and Flaco Jimenez.
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The songwriting, production and singing on this 'lost' David Forman album are, to my ears, as good as the best work of Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Joan Armatrading, Mickey Newbury and John Prine.
Danny Goldberg

DAVID FORMAN
WHO YOU BEEN TALKING TO

OFFICIAL VIDEO

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Who You Been Talking To captures Forman at the height of his powers, blending doo-wop sophistication with 1970s noir, Randy Newman’s wit with Aaron Neville’s melismatic soul. The album opens with “Who You Been Talking To,” a smoky Motown groove that builds into an intoxicating wall of sound. “Let It Go Now” features a gigantic guitar riff and Forman’s soaring falsetto rising through columns of angelic backup singers amid Nitzsche’s cavernous production. “A-Train Lady” is a quintessential New York subway soul serenade with a Drifters groove. “Little Asia” unfolds as a sphinxlike ballad of high cinematic intensity featuring Ry Cooder on Colombian tiple. Throughout, Forman’s lyrics paint vivid portraits of a 1970s New York that lives somewhere between memory and myth.
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