Peter Case — 600, 599

ALBUMS: Peter Case (1986);  Peter Case EP ‘Selections from Peter Case’ (Promotional 1986)

MVC Ratings: 4.0/$$$

 Peter Case is an artist I bought most likely in Birmingham at Chuck’s WUXTRY. It was Case’s self-entitled debut and a great record. I thought he was going places, and he did, I suppose. I just lost track of him after a CD called Six Pack of Love, which I should go back and give a listen to see  why he kind of fell from my listening purview.

He started young in a power  pop New Wave band, the Nerves, and followed with a pretty successful run in a band called the Plimsouls (which I will review later).

For his debut he turned into a Woody Guthrie/Dylan styled singer-songwriter. His hat (fedora?) is on his noggin on both the album cover and back picture. And it’s on in his slightly different cover shot of his five-song EP promotional edition, which gets you an accoustic version  of Steel Strings.  Back photo shot is of Case walking  away down the road, in slightly oversized suit (w/hat) and carrying a case that looks too small for a guitar.

His music sounds like that. Lots of strumming, lots of melodious story-telling. Best one is ‘Small Town Spree’ about a friend’s burglary splurge.  The Van Dyke Parks’ arrangement, with strings accenting the steel strum goes like this:

It all started at Gate’s liquor store,  you helped yourself to a bottle of  scotch; Strolled down to Miller’s Drugs, forged a check and borrowed a watch

I do like his version of the Pogue’s song “A Pair of Brown Eyes’ — good pub song. If you think you would like a more seriousTodd Snider or a more bluesy Shawn Mullins, Case may be worth checking out.

In the liner notes Case writes: ‘My sister told me on the phone she heard someone on the radio singing about small towns in America.’

Case continues. ‘I said I didn’t know any songs about America – these songs are all about sin and salvation.’

NOTE: Case was in the Nerves with Paul Collins, later of the Beat, a power pop juggernaut.  A who’s who of artists assisted on this Case debut, including T Bone Burnett, Van Dyke Parks, John Hiatt, Jim Keltner, Mike Campbell, Roger McGuinn and Victoria Williams, among others.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.