The Man With The Blue Post Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar - Peter Case (1989)
Despite queuing up a lot of music that I had a vested interest in the last couple weeks, I hadn’t found much of the personal connection in it that I thought I might. The connection of music to the various signal fires of my life (or my narrative of my life) inspires me to keep this project going.
So here’s one that I’ve enjoyed for a long time, and which lets me blather about my formatives years some more.
This album came out at the tail end of the part of my life when I listened to and read about a lot of Christian rock. Case wouldn’t be mistaken for an evangelist, but he has a spirtual bent to his music that garnered a mention in CCM magazine, the Christian rock pub which I still got delivered every month. Might be the same entity as the current online publication called that. Might not. No idea.
So, because at the end of the 80s you often had to decide to listen to something by reading about it, I got hold of the cassette.
It’s a great title for an album, obviously. As to how it relates to the music: I’ll give you blue and neo-traditionalist, although I don’t know how postmodern this fairly standard collection of hard times and hope is.
I’d lump Case into the general character class of what I call “Freewheeling Troubadours.” Songs are usually about the struggles of a particular character, the common sort of guy or girl who doesn’t deserve the role they’re playing but are stuck there just the same.
The music floats somewhere among roots rock, blues, country, and folk. It’s free from commercial pressures because this isn’t mass-audience music anymore.
Case is good at it, and this record is a great showcase for it.
The bluesy songs are often done on 12-string here and ring true and lonesome.
There are some pretty pop-oriented tunes like Put Down The Gun. Travelin’ Light is more of a bayou-country shuffle.
The harrowing tale of Poor Old Tom is straight American folk tradition, lyrically and musically.
Good stuff that’s stuck with me.
RIYL
I don’t actually know that many other Peter Case records very well, although the other one I really dig is 2010’s much more rockin’ Wig!
A similar artist in my mind is the recently deceased Todd Snider. My favorite Snider song will always be America’s Favorite Pastime, a recounting of one of the wildest episods in baseball lore.
I’ve written about James McMurtry on the blog. I think he fits well into the Freewheeling Troubadour archetype.
Steve Earle is probably the purest expression of what I’m talking about here. I’ll get to one of his, probably the mind-blowing Jerusalem, eventually.
There’s no gender requirement on the Freewheeling Troubadour. Non-binary singer writer Adeem The Artist fits easily here, as do female artists like Kacey Musgraves, Lucy Dacus, and Phoebe Bridgers. I feel like these women often get unfairly labeled as merely “country singers” because it makes it easier for the mainstream music biz to market them. It does them a disservice, and their wide and diverse audiences show why it’s a mistake.
