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"When I was a kid, I was a listener," says Clarence Greenwood, a.k.a. Citizen Cope. "Music was something coming out of a radio or off a record, something that made me feel these things I couldn't explain. It was magical to me, and I thought it was something you had to be ordained with."

What's clear when you listen to Cope's own music now, years after he sat transfixed in front of his stereo speakers, is that he *is* ordained. Or touched. Or blessed. Or however you want to say it: The man has the gift. It's never been more evident as on "Every Waking Moment," his third album (second release for RCA). By far his most personal recording, "Every Waking Moment" shows Cope continuing his deep exploration of the world that confronts all of us every day. How do we love those we care about? How do we change a world that throws daily horrors in our faces? How do we live with ourselves day after day? How do we capture joy?

This is Cope's gift: He takes snapshots of the world around him, and turns them into universal truths. He sets them to the simplest of melodies, and weds those in turn to the most soul-stirring grooves.

Cope had clearly arrived. Although never embraced by mainstream commercial radio, in 2004, he was seemingly everywhere. Though he was living in Brooklyn, his real life at that point was on the road. He toured steadily for sixteen-months, a grueling stretch that Cope was determined to use to build a connection with his fans. He knew radio didn't know what to do with his genre-bending music, and that he would have to bring his music to the people.

And even when he sings about politicians "ordering the killing of innocent civilians," there's still the background chant of "Without you I'd be all alone." It's the sound of Cope connecting with himself, connecting with the one he loves, and most profoundly, connecting with the listener. And in the sweeping, driving "Brother Lee," he pulls us all in, wherever we are, from "Brooklyn USA to a tinsel town where now the Dodgers play." It's an emotional update of Woody Guthrie's line in "This Land Was Made For You and Me," the line "From California to the New York island." Cope makes it clear that the things that tie us all together are stronger than the things that tear us apart, as he chants in his nearly hypnotic smoky, soulful voice, "I got a brother named Lee who looked just like me, both sides of the Mississippi."