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FeedA homecoming for Peter Case
Peter Case is a favorite among music aficionados, critics, and fellow musicians, and he is someone who has lived and breathed music all his adult life. He’s also a Buffalo native, and on Friday, August 13 the acclaimed singer returns for a concert at the Sportsmen’s Tavern at 326 Amherst Street. Case will be backed at the 7 p.m. show by local musicians and friends Jim Whitford, Mark Winsick, and Rob Lynch.
Born in Buffalo in 1954, he was raised in the Queen City until he left in his teens after dropping out of high school. He wound up in California in 1973 and from there he recorded multiple albums as a member of the Nerves and then the Plimsouls, followed by a solo career that now spans more than ten albums, three Grammy nominations, and decades of touring.
But his Buffalo show is truly a special one, since it’s Case’s first homecoming show since surviving emergency open-heart surgery last year. With no health insurance and unable to work, he struggled to pay off the mounds of medical bills which followed his operation. Fortunately, he received invaluable help from fellow admiring musicians like T-Bone Burnett, Loudon Wainwright III, Richard Thompson, and Ian McLagen, who staged benefit concerts for Case all over the country.
Case calls making music “my way of life,” and he returned to it soon after reaching full recovery by hitting the studio and recording his newest Yep Roc Records album Wig! When asked how the operation and his subsequent troubles influenced the album, Case says, “I’m very glad to be alive. I think that comes through.” It certainly does, as Case sounds energetic and inspired throughout Wig!
He describes himself as “a songwriter in the American tradition of rock’n’roll, blues, country, and folk,” but admits that this album in particular is “more on the rocking side … A return to the electric guitar.” Indeed, his dogged, bluesy electric guitar drives the album, accompanied at times by harmonica and piano. Case’s vocal style is infectious on songs like the fervidly smooth “Words in Red,” urgent and persuasive on the rumbling “Somebody Told the Truth,” and boisterous and enthusiastic on “Dig What You’re Putting Down.”
When asked what Buffalo means to him, Case says, “It’s a powerful place for me—a lot of friends, a lot of memories. love the city, the surrounding country … A lot of my songs were inspired there.” He says he was strongly influenced by the blues scene on the West Side of Buffalo in the early 70s. And he has influenced others in turn; Case’s songs have been continually covered over the years; there was even a three-disc tribute performed by other artists. In fact, he says he’s most proud of “writing songs that others sing and keeping the music alive as I get older.”
In addition to the Sportsmen’s show, Case will play in Rochester on August 14, and in a special show in Hamburg on the April 15 at the home of Marty Boratin and Susan Tanner: 7341 Nelson Drive in Hamburg; for details, call 812-4671 or e-mail martyboratin@roadrunner.com.
For more info on Case and his tour dates, visit his website or Yep Roc’s artist site.
