Peter Case

Track	Album
I Shook His Hand	Peter Case
Travellin’ Light	Blue Guitar
Two Angels	Blue Guitar
Waltz Of The Angels	Sings Like Hell
Blind Luck	Torn Again
On The Way Downtown	Full Service No Waiting
I Hear Your Voice	Beeline
Ain’t Gonna Worry No More	Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John
The Long Good Time	HWY 62
Eyes Of Love	Doctor Moan
Bonus Track
Farewell To The Gold	The Midnight Broadcast

Peter Case first came to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s with the power pop bands, the Nerves and the Plimsouls. The Nerves are probably best known for the fact that Blondie covered – and had an early hit – with their song, Hanging On The Telephone (the original version can be heard here). His bandmate, Jack Lee – who later wrote Come Back And Stay which was a hit for Paul Young – wrote the song. After the Nerves split up, Case formed the Plimsouls in 1978. They were primarily created as a vehicle for his songs rather than as a collaborative exercise in the way that the Nerves had been. Due to its appearance in the soundtrack for the 1983 movie Valley Girl, their most popular song is probably A Million Miles Away. In Case’s own words, the Plimsouls “picked up where the Nerves left off adding maximum R&B and folk rock influences to the mix”. They also quickly developed a reputation as an excellent live band. Many people saw them as being on the verge of a commercial breakthrough – having signed to the Geffen label in 1983 – before they split up in 1985.

Following the break-up of the Plimsouls, Case embarked on a solo career. Unusually for the times, this saw him move away from the rock roots of his earlier bands and towards a far more acoustic sound. The country, blues and folk influences, which he had imbibed earlier in his life, also now came much more strongly to the fore. The momentum that had built up around the Plimsouls also meant that Geffen Records were willing to invest a good deal of resources in his debut self-titled solo record, first released in 1986. The stellar group of musicians who played on it included those of the stature of T-Bone Burnett, Mike Campbell, John Hiatt, Roger McGuinn, and Van Dyke Parks (who was also involved in arranging some of the tracks). My choice from it, the brilliant I Shook His Hand, is an account of a fleeting encounter between a child and a major political figure (most likely JFK). The song brilliantly captures the sense of lost promise (I was too young not to understand) caused by the Kennedy assassination.

Like his first record, Peter Case’s second solo album Blue Guitar -or to give it its full title, The man with the Blue postmodern fragmented neo-traditionalist Guitar – featured a superb group of backing musicians. These included Benmont Tench on organ, Ry Cooder on guitar, David Hidalgo on guitar, violin, accordion and ukelele, Jerry Scheff on bass, and Jim Keltner on drums. It also featured perhaps the strongest set of songs which Case was ever to record. In consequence, it was very difficult to decide which ones to exclude from this list. In the end, however, my choice was based on selecting those tracks which gave a good representation of the qualities of the album as a whole. The lyrics were also among Case’s most openly autobiographical up to that point. Among the themes which he covered on the record were the after-effects of his own difficult upbringing and the painful processes by which maturity is achieved. The songs were also delivered with a hard-won wisdom, which seemed to owe a good deal to some of the difficulties which he had experienced in his own personal life up to that point. They also dealt with his early years as a street musician in San Francisco after he had left his hometown of Hamburg NY – a small town near Buffalo – as a teenager. Among the best of these autobiographical songs are Entella Hotel, and my first pick, Travellin’ Light.

By contrast, Two Angels is probably his finest love song, although the relationship described in it appears to be a doomed one. The track also features one of Case’s purest vocal performances and some beautifully subtle guitar playing by David Hidalgo and Jack Sherman.

Despite its excellence, Blue Guitar did not have the commercial success it deserved. After one more album for Geffen (Six-Pack Of Love co-produced with Mitchell Froom and first released in 1992), Peter Case left the label for Vanguard Records. His 1993 release, Sings Like Hell,is a fine collection of acoustic covers of other artist’s songs. These include blues songs – Mance Lipscomb’s Charlie James, Blind Lemon Jefferson’s Matchbox Blues, Blind Willie McTell’s Broke Down Engine – folk songs such as Rose Connolly and Lakes Of Pontchartrain – and countryesque songs like Jesse Winchester’s How ˈBout You.  My pick from it, however, is Case’s lovely version of the country standard Waltz Of The Angels.

For comparison’s sake, this is the better-known earlier version by George Jones and Margie Singleton.

After Sings Like Hell, Case recorded a series of remarkably consistent albums, and I have included some of the best songs from them here. Of these, Blind Luck is an excellent bluesy song, which may reflect his attempt to come to terms with his failure to achieve the level of commercial success that the quality of his work deserved. By contrast, the folk-flavoured On The Way Downtown features one of his most finely crafted lyrics. It is a brilliant reflection on returning back to one’s hometown after several years away in the shadow of a failed relationship (I’m going back to the corner where we used to meet / when our dreams were young and the nights were sweet). The next pick, the beautiful I Hear Your Voice is one of Case’s very best love songs. Ain’t Gonna Worry No More reflects his longstanding love of country blues. The song also refers to the inspirational effect which seeing Lightnin’ Hopkins play for the first time had on his future choice of career. The track also features some typically excellent picking from Case.

In January 2009, Peter Case had to have major surgery – a heart bypass operation – following a series of health problems. He originally ascribed these to the pressures of living on the road. Like many musicians in the United States, he did not have health insurance. As a result, he faced enormous challenges in paying for the treatment which saved his life. To aid him in doing so, his friends in the music business formed a trust to help him to pay his medical bills. They also organised a number of concerts to raise funds for him. These gave an indication of the respect his peers hold for him. Among those artists who performed were Loudon Wainwright, Van Dyke Parks, Richard Thompson, Dave Alvin, T-Bone Burnett, James McMurtry. Although their help enabled Case to survive a crisis which might otherwise have been financially crippling, he remained keenly aware that he had been extremely fortunate. There were many other people in the United States who could not access that kind of help from their friends.

It is perhaps this brush with death which accounts for the more reflective and elegiac – and at times more politically and socially conscious – tone of Case’s work since that time. Of my final choices, The Long Good Time is a beautifully crafted autobiographical song which looks back on his childhood. It also shows his eye for keenly observed details (his mother doing her ironing while she listened to Nat King Cole, the windows open in the summer heat, he and his father circling the table, fighting the war with our fists). The song also deals with Case’s gradual reconciliation with his past and his acceptance of its positive aspects. The song also features one of his stateliest melodies.

The final selection, Eyes Of Love, is a fine piano-driven ballad from Case’s most recent album, the excellent Doctor Moan. The excellence of the album also shows that well into his fifth decade in the music business, Peter Case continues to write great songs and is deserving of a place among the finest songwriters of recent times.

Bonus Track

This is Case’s fine version of Paul Meitser’s classic ballad, Farewell To The Gold. Although there are many fine cover versions, this one stands out as one of the best. It has an atmospheric quality which some of the others lack, while the slightly ragged quality of Peter’s vocal here fits the subject matter of the song perfectly. If the renditions by Nic Jones and Séamus Begley remain my favourite takes on the song, Pete’s cover runs them close:

The two documentaries, A Million Miles Away: Take Yes For An Answer (2023) and Troubadour Blues (2011) are highly recommended.

Official Website

Peter Case at Yep Roc Records

Interview by Middle Mojo Magazine (2017)

Los Angeles Times interview (2010)

Interviews at Hot Punk City

Behind the Setlist’s podcast interview with Peter Case

Andrew Shields is a freelance historian, who grew up in the West of Ireland and currently lives in Sydney, Australia. Along with an interest in history, politics and literature, his other principal occupations are listening to and reading about the music of Bob Dylan and, in more recent years, immersing himself in the often brilliant and unduly neglected music of Phil Ochs.

Read the Toppermosts of some of the other artists mentioned in this post: Dave Alvin, Séamus Begley, Blondie, Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, George Jones, Nic Jones, James McMurtry, Blind Willie McTell, Van Dyke Parks, Richard Thompson, Jesse Winchester, Paul Young

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