Record Review 12 Peter Case: "Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John"

Peter Case
“Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John”

Soooo...what do you do about Peter Case. This guy is now getting old and he has been making quality music for at least thirty years. Case born in 1954 is...jeeez....53 years old. You have never even heard of him and he is one of the greatest singer/songwriter/guitarists of our time. He was in an ealry new wave (skinny tie) band called The Nerves in LA/San Fran and then brokke big in 1980 with The Plimsouls. Of course you will all remember them from the Nick Cage vehicle “Valley Girl” where they were the basement punk band singing their hit “Million Miles Away.” Well...I remember at least. It was a seminal moment in my early college experience...or mid college...I don’t remember. Anyway... he did not really make it big. Plimsouls broke up and like so many others he launched a solo career and became the dreded “critic’s darling.”

Case embarked on a solo career with his epynomous CD which also started the solo production career of T-Bone (Oh Brother Where Art Thou) Burnette. The album was brilliant...groundbreaking and critically acclaimed and...nothing happened. One of the songs on it “Old Blue Car” was grammy nominated and...nothing happened. The CD also had the talents of John Hiatt and Roger Mc Guinn (The Byrds). It is a personal favorite. Perhaps not a desert island CD but close. Very close. His second CD was (for my taste) even more brilliant and brillaintly titled as “The Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar.” He recorded that with Ry Cooder and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos and was critically acclaimed and...nothing happened. “Blue Guitar” is a desert island CD with too many great songs and lyrics to recount but.... I can’t help myself...from the albums song “Poor Old Tom”

As we make our way towards our destination,
fortunes are still made with flesh and blood.
Progress and love got nothing in common
Jesus healed a blind man’s eyes with mud.”

GOOD STUFF

Now he has this one...his twelfth album. Check out how many albums.
Discography
• Peter Case, 1986 album
• Fast Folk: Los Angeles, 1988 compliation
• The Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Gui tar, 1989 album
• Six-Pack of Love, 1992 album
• Sings Like Hell, 1993 album
• Torn Again, 1995 album
• Full Service No Waiting, 1998 album
• Flying Saucer Blues, 2000 album
• Thank You St. Jude, 2001 album
• Beeline, 2002 album
• Who's Gonna Go Your Crooked Mile, 2004 album
• A Case for Case, 2006 tribute album
• Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John, 2007

All of them have moved over a lot of different ground but always rely on his lyrics and his strong playing. Kind of like James Mc Murtry (another favorite) his guitar playing is totally under rated. The fact is that he can just tear it up bouncing back and forth primarily between folk and blues and then sometimes just playing some straight out rockers. the thing about the new CD is just how perfect and even the quality of it is. case has developedover the years into a monster for social justice and leaves behind most of the simple love song stuff for big worldview questions. He writes about the down and out and injustice and how frankly funny and scary life can be. It is good stuff.

The CD kicks off with “Every 24 Hours” which is just a great song about life, living on the road and that nothing stays the same or constant because...”the world turns every 24 hours.” No shit. he sings and plays with Richard Thompson (another fave) but Thompson does not...cannot dominate either vocally or with the guitar. but they sound great together.
“Underneath The Stars” is a beautiful peann to a homelss woman as she dies. hard stuff but elegant. The next song “A Million Dollars Bail” is for any lawyer or person who has seen the inside of the system and how many and talented lawyers work it for the benefit of the rich and pwerful. “Two Kinds of justice everyone knows. Ones for the people up on the hill, the others down below.” Simple themes. Populist themes. Springsteen was listening to a lot of Peter Case when he wrote some of his best stuff but case keeps on going and going. He conveys righteous without self righteous which is a rare thing indeed. He has a nice website at:

http://www.petercase.com/

Everything about this new CD is worth discovering because even as he casts arrows at the problems of people and the world his music is always hopeful and always looking forward and always calling you to something more...something grand. case is the real deal and this CD is another in a long line of genius and it is... one of the best. Buy it. 8 Sliders on the 10 scale.