Marc Cohn and His Mighty Temple: singer shrugs off gunshot wound to the head

“And he said – Tell me are you a Christian boy?
And I said ‘Ma’am, I am tonight'”
(Marc Cohn, “Walking In Memphis”)

Smoky-voiced singer-songwriter-pianist Marc Cohn, 46, best known for his 1991 smash “Walking In Memphis,” semi-miraculously escaped serious injury when he was shot in the head Sunday night in an attempted car-jacking of his touring van after a sold-out concert at Denver’s botanical gardens.

The alleged attacker, Joseph W Yacteen, 26, was fleeing from the police on foot after trying to pay a hotel bill with a stolen credit card. Cohn’s tour manager Thomas Dube, who was driving the van, tried to evade the attacker but the man fired a shot into the van’s windshield, grazing Dube and hitting Cohn in the temple. Both were treated and later released from Denver’s Health Medical Center.

Cohn did cancel the remaining five stops on his tour with Suzanne Vega, being that he was just shot in the head and everything.

Denver Police Department spokesman Sonny Jackson said, “Frankly, I can’t tell you how he survived. The bullet hit Mr. Cohn flush in the temple. He’s very lucky it wasn’t a fatal shot,” adding that the bullet appeared to have been slowed by hitting the windshield and Mr Dube first.

Now that’s a REAL tour manager: “slowing” a bullet for you with his head.

Cohn won the Grammy for best new artist of ’91, and is married to ABC news reporter Elizabeth Vargas. They have a 2 year-old son.

Police arrested Yacteen later outside a vacant house where he had sequestered himself for hours, negotiating with police. He was finally forced out of the house by tear gas, pointed a gun at officers and was shot with a non-lethal rubber ball.