Peter Case, one of the master songwriters, has enjoyed a fifty-year recording career and has been writing songs for even longer. He was born in Buffalo, New York, but his recording career has been centred on the West Coast and encompasses punk rock, new wave, acoustic rock and contemporary folk, though his songwriting has always been at the heart of what he does. His first recording band was The Nerves, which he formed in 1974 with Jack Lee and Paul Collins in 1976. They were influential in the emerging punk and new wave scenes in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and while they didn’t achieve any chart success themselves, Blondie had considerable success when they covered The Nerves’ Hanging On The Telephone. His next significant band was The Plimsouls, who had chart success with A Million Miles Away in the early ’80s and were on Geffen Records for a time. He launched his solo career in 1986 with the eponymous Peter Case, which was produced by T Bone Burnett and featured drummer Jim Keltner, Roger McGuinn, Van Dyke Parks, among others. His next album, 1989’s The Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar, featured Ry Cooder, David Hidalgo, and Benmont Tench. Despite some chart success in the early ’90s, Peter Case never broke through to a mass audience, though he regularly released largely acoustic-based albums full of his great songs, which were eagerly consumed by his dedicated fan base.
His latest album, My Life To Live: Peter Case At McCabe’s, is a celebration of his lifetime in music and was recorded at the famed Los Angeles folk venue, McCabe’s. Americana UK’s Martin Johnson caught up with Peter Case at home in San Francisco over Zoom to discuss the new live, largely acoustic album and to get some edited highlights from his long career. He shares his insight into the thriving Buffalo music scene of his formative years, and explains how local Buffalo musicians influenced Ronnie Hawkins and, through him, The Band. He also explains how he brought elements of the Buffalo sound to his early work on the West Coast. He shares the influence that jazz had on his formative years and how he became the resident pianist at the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church. He also explains how the blues is at the heart of his music, and the satisfaction he has from playing solo shows where he can simply focus on the songs. There was also a lesson for this writer in that I had completely missed Peter’s recent tour of the UK, so I will be keeping in regular touch via his website here.
Peter Case’s “My Life To Live: Peter Case At McCabe’s” is out now on Sunset Blvd Records.
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