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Case departed his rock'n'soul band the Plimsouls in 1984, just after they hit with the jangle-rock standard "A Million Miles Away," with the intention of retuning to the traditional music he loved. The first from the punk generation to get back to basics and perform roots-oriented music as a solo performer, he was ahead of the oncoming singer-songwriter explosion by miles. "I felt like I was reinventing the wheel," says Case of the switch, but smart audiences came along for the ride and he'd opened the door through which other rockers would soon follow. Debuting in 1986 with a T-Bone Burnett-produced solo album (featuring contributions “I’ve always wanted to make a true solo record in the tradition of the ones I love, from Jimmie Rodgers’ Never No Mo Blues and Robert Johnson’s 29 songs to Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads and Dylan’s first four albums, on through Bert Jansch’s and Nick Drake’s solo recordings,” he says. ”Sleepy John Estes’s Broke and Hungry has been an inspiration to me ever since I started playing.” Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John covers the waterfront, from the vast cultural shifts on “The Open Road” and law disorder in “Million Dollars Bail” to the personal and social dilemmas posed by the ne’er do well in “Palookaville” and the homeless woman he wishes well in “Underneath the Stars.” The mystical “Every 24 Hours” features guitar and vocals by folk-rock giant Richard Thompson whom Case has long admired from afar and has become acquainted with over time in the folk wars as a fellow traveling guitar man. From “Poor Old Tom” and “Two Angels” to “Beyond the Blues” and “Blue Distance,” Case’s songs resonate for artists diverse as Robert Earl Keen, the Flamin’ Groovies and Chris Smither, to Alejandro Escovedo and James McMurtry, all of whom have covered him. Grammy nominated again as producer of Avalon Blues (Vanguard, 2001), a various artist tribute to the music of his country blues hero, Mississippi John Hurt, Case continues to oversee studio projects by his fellow musicians, most recently singer-songwriter Crosby Tyler and Americana players, Dead Rock West. And he's currently enjoying the rediscovery of his first West Coast band, the influential pre-punk concern, the Nerves. Case, Paul Collins and Jack Lee formed their band in late 1974; in 2008 their first album, One Way Ticket, was finally released by Alive Records. Finding themselves in the embrace of a whole new generation of fans, the Nerves have received an overwhelmingly positive response from fans and critics alike. Case's peers have also honored him with A Case for Case, (Hungry for Music, 2003), a three-disc set of forty-seven singing-songwriters, including Dave Alvin, Victoria Williams, Joe Ely, and Amy Rigby, among others, saluting his peerless songcraft. The first installment of his four-part memoir, As Far As You Can Get Without a Passport (everthemore books, 2007), tells of his life as a San Francisco street singer, busking for beers and living in a junkyard. He is currently readying part-two for publication. Case calls his story “The anti-Chronicles, referring to Bob Dylan’s book. “Dylan went east and made it to the top I came west and went straight to the bottom.” Obviously he's worked his way up since then, and after countless nights of roadwork, Case has met not only the ghosts of a thousand truck drivers but plenty of real people, from Mississippi to Montana who appreciate a true song when they hear one, folks who treasure the words of a writer who speaks truth and directly to their dashed hopes, deferred dreams and the promise of a some bright morning on the horizon. “Vinyl records playing in the sunrise or late at night on teenage apartment phonographs, also heard on the sacred Sunday evening ‘Folkscene’ broadcast,” says Case. “That’s what this music started as, for me: a key to the highway, an opening of the doors on the world. It’s a sound that left my heart room to grow and a connection from today’s world to a past that’s vanished, but never that far away.” Visit the Peter Case webpages:
(photo at center-left © 2008, Doug Seymour, all rights reserved; photo at center-right © 2007, Denise Sullivan, all rights reserved) |
"The guitar makes a band," says singer-songwriter-guitarist Peter Case. "It's the sound of freedom, possibility, companionship, adventure, sex, romance, anti-authoritarianism, life against death, positive social action, satire of the powerful, humor through trouble and despair, with no need for boxes of metal beats, or for filling in the blanks with by-rote-rock- arrangements, your-message-here, walls-of-deadening-sound."
from Ry Cooder, David Hidalgo and Jim Keltner) he earned a Grammy nomination for its songs detailing the failure of the American Dream. Set to a tribal folk percussive blend of blues, country and rock'n'roll, echoes of its theme and sound run through his entire songbook. Over the next two decades he would release the highly acclaimed and influential the man with the Blue post-modern fragmented neo-traditionalist Guitar, the dreamscape Torn Again and the rock solid Case classics Full Service No Waiting and Flying Saucer Blues. His own label, Travellin’ Light, released two beloved collections of stripped-down roots music: Peter Case Sings Like Hell and Thank You St. Jude. The 21st Century has seen the psycho-Delhi-blues of Beeline, and 2004’s politically motivated tracks, “Wake up Call” and “My Generation’s Golden Handcuff Blues,” compiled on his best of the Vanguard years set, Who’s Gonna Go Your Crooked Mile. The 2007 Yep Roc Records release, Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John, earned Case another Grammy nomination in the Best Traditional Folk Album category. Sleepy John is Case at his most direct: a straight shot from the frontlines of our times, delivered by one man, a guitar (and a handful of friends).
