From the Memphis Commercial Appeal:


A folk artist for all genres
Peter Case builds folk pedigree, but earned notoriety
in rock and roll
By Bob Mehr

Friday, February 22, 2008

Among the nearly 300 performers appearing at this
weekend's annual Folk Alliance conference, Peter Case
is both the perfect representative for the genre and
something of an outsider.

Although Case is a folk artist in the truest sense of
the word -- he began busking as a Dylan-inspired youth
in the late-'60s and has a rich acoustic discography
-- he's spent much of his career, and earned most of
his notoriety, among rock and pop audiences.

"I started out a long time ago doing this kind of
stuff, but for some reason I'm not really all that
well known to the (folk) niche," says Case, who will
be performing at the conference and an open-to-the
public showcase at the Center for Southern Folklore
tonight. "It's good for me to

get down there and play for an audience that's
naturally attuned to what I do already."

Last year, while appearing at the Folk Alliance, Case
also performed an in-store show at Cooper-Young's
Goner Records, attracting a packed house of garage and
punk fans. His ability to navigate between such
different musical worlds is testament to Case's
natural abilities as a performer as well as his long,
varied and colorful career.

The 53-year-old Case, born in Buffalo, N.Y., was taken
with the folk boom and early rock and roll as a teen.
He hitchhiked his way across country as a street
musician, eventually landing in San Francisco, where
he was drafted by Jack Lee and Paul Collins into the
now-revered cult combo the Nerves. The group released
one influential EP, 1976's Hanging on the Telephone
(the title track later a hit for Blondie), before Case
went south to Los Angeles and formed the Plimsouls.

Fronting that short-lived outfit -- still considered
one of power-pop's seminal groups -- Case had a brush
with mainstream stardom, when the band's "A Million
Miles Away," was featured prominently in the 1983
Nicolas Cage comedy "Valley Girl."

The more than two decades since the band's break-up
has seen Case build a critically acclaimed solo career
with a series of blues, country and folk-driven albums
like Sings Like Hell and Full Service, No Waiting.
He's also developed a sideline as folklorist,
producing album tributes to Mississippi John Hurt and
curating musical retrospectives for the Getty Museum.

The year started well for Case. Already a multiple
Grammy nominee, his 2007 CD, Let Us Now Praise Sleepy
John, was up for an award earlier this month in Los
Angeles in the Best Traditional Folk Album category.
It lost to Dirt Farmer, the comeback record by Levon
Helm of The Band.

"I had a little speech prepared that I had to throw
away," says Case, laughing. "Still, I know that they
picked my record out of like a hundred folk records,
and it made it to the top five, so it's a nice
recognition."

Despite the loss, Case says he enjoyed the Grammy
ceremonies, seeing veterans David "Honeyboy" Edwards
and Pinetop Perkins take home a blues award and
watching legends like Little Richard and Jerry Lee
Lewis perform. "The Grammys are a good floor show and
a nice buffet, y'know what I mean?" he says. "I've
been there before, and have a little bit of history
with it. I met Jerry Lee at the Grammys the first time
I attended -- I guess it was 1980, when I went with
the Go-Gos. So I've had some interesting experiences
there."

The Grammy recognition for Sleepy John -- the title an
homage to the late great Tennessee bluesman Sleepy
John Estes -- was well deserved. Recorded in San
Francisco with noted Bay Area producer Ian Brennan,
the album is a spare, mostly solo affair -- though it
boasts guest shots from British guitar great Richard
Thompson and Merle Haggard sideman Norm Hamlet, among
others -- that finds Case burning through his
strongest outing since the 1989 classic The Man With
the Blue Postmodern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist
Guitar.

"We were trying to make a real record out of a folk
record, like the ones I love by Bert Jansch, Bob
Dylan, Joan Baez and Jack Elliott. Records where the
performances are really something, not just where it
sounds like you're making a demo of a song," says
Case. "It's actually more involved than making a band
record in a certain kind of way. You have to hit the
thing with a certain kind of momentum or velocity to
get the performances to hold up."

The performances do more than hold up, as Case sings
with a freshness and vitality missing from so many
contemporary folk albums. "Well, a bunch of those were
new songs and the recordings were the first time I'd
ever actually played them," says Case.

With nearly a lifetime of writing and playing under
his belt, the seasoned Case seems to be at a peak of
his powers. He continues to hone his skills on the
road: for the last decade or so, he's toured
tirelessly, playing an average 120 dates a year -- and
he doesn't plan on slowing down any time soon. "Being
on the road, that's how you understand what's going on
in the world. It's the way I understand America, and
what's happening," says Case. "Plus, performing is the
basic component of my life. I'm a musician, I gotta
play. That's kind of all there is to it."

Case's work has not been limited just to his songs.
Last year, Everthemore Books published the first
volume of his life story, "As Far As You Can Get
Without A Passport." It's a wonderfully evocative tale
that splits the difference between Bob Dylan's musical
autobiography "Chronicles" and the rambling spirit of
Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" -- although Case
hesitates to use the "M" word.

"I don't feel like I'm writing a memoir -- that sounds
so pretentious. It's not a famous guy's memoir; it's
an unknown person's tale of the world. It's kind of
like I'm writing a novel, but they're all true
stories," says Case, who is currently finishing a
follow-up. "Honestly, it's made me rethink what I
thought my life story was. Putting it down on paper,
it's a little different than I thought it was."

More than 20 years and a dozen albums into his solo
career, Case's goals remain the same. "I'm still
trying to write great songs," he says.

"It's an amazing, mysterious process. There are times
where everything adds up and other times where you go
through periods of total despair. I suppose it's like
a guy who goes to the track -- some days you win and
some days you don't. But when it happens, it's a great
feeling."

Apart from his own solo career, Case remains busy on a
number of creative fronts. He recently produced an
album by up-and-coming singer-songwriter Crosby Tyler
(who will also be appearing at the Folk Alliance) and
has been putting lyrics to some new tunes by his
Plimsouls bandmate David Pahoa. "David's come up with
some music and I'm writing some words for it. So it
might turn into a new Plimsouls record, we'll see,"
says Case, who last went into the studio with the band
for 1996's reunion effort Kool Trash.

But as always, whatever shape Case's work takes next,
he remains committed to his craft and his calling,
ready for the next song, the next city and the next
show.

"I've been around and playing for so many years, it's
weird to be so unknown in the larger culture," he
says. "But I have a feeling that as you probe down
deeper in there, I've made myself felt with these
songs and what I'm singing about. So I just have to
have faith in what I'm doing and keep moving ahead."

-- Bob Mehr; 529-2517

Concert preview

Peter Case performs tonight at 8:30 p.m. during the
Folk Alliance showcase at the Center for Southern
Folklore, 119 South Main Street. Tickets are $10. For
more information call 525-3655.

© 2008 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online
















GuitarSlingers (Yahoo): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GuitarSlingers
Blues At The Crossroads--The Sound Of The Delta
(Yahoo):http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BluesattheCrossroads
BluesWomen (Yahoo)--http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BluesWomen





test'; " type=text/css>






__________________________________________________________
Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
A Smarter Inbox. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html