Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Has it really been 37 years since Peter Case's superb self-titled solo debut (after years in the terrific power-pop band the Plimsouls) crossed our path?
And if so – and regrettably it is so – why, when that is one of our favourites and a longtime Essential Elsewhere album, have so few of his subsequent albums come into our view?
We only have three or four out of his dozen-plus album, and we only wrote about one: 2007's Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John which was nominated for a best traditional folk Grammy.
Yes, 68-year old Case has shifted from pop-rock and power-pop to more acoustic and folk styles but remains a great songwriter, not one to fall for the easy gestures of the craft.
He's held in such high regards that a 2006 tribute album featured his former wife Victoria Williams, Hayes Carll, Tom Russell, Chris Smither, Kim Richey, Joe Ely, John Prine, James McMurtry, Chuck Prophet and other luminaries.
Here on his 16th album he puts aside guitar in favour of piano, with holy organ from Chris Joyner to add a gospel feel to songs which can be deeply personal (but universal, as on “what happened to” That Gang of Mine lamenting the party of life being over), full of contained emotion (Eyes of Love) and just a smidgen of pop on the sole guitar track, Wandering Days.
Ancient Sunrise is a raw, Southern piano blues which proves his voice us undiminished and the influence of the church; Brand New Book of Rules is another piano blues but more earthy and witty (“it's cold inside this bag of bones, it's too late to cry for the Rolling Stones”); Girl in Love With a Shadow is a beautiful heartfelt ballad somewhere between Costello, Dylan and Russell.
Doctor Moan is so fresh and real it sounds like Peter Case has walked into a room with a couple of pals and sat himself at the piano to get these smart lyrics and straightforward songs out of his system.
It's damn fine stuff and at the end you can almost hear the songbook close, the piano stool pushed back and the door closing behind him as walks out into the bright sunlight again.
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You can hear this album at Spotify here
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