It has been a long hard road, but one that has stretched from New Wave to Folk Rock, and from Buffalo to the West Coast. His 1976 band The Nerves gave way to The Plimsouls in 1980. He headed out on his own in 1986, with T Bone Burnett producing his first solo album. More solo projects followed. Peter Case, who is also an avid musicologist, curated the musical program for the Getty Museum in LA in the late 90's. In 2001, he organized, produced, and performed on Avalon Blues, which was a tribute to Mississippi John Hurt. It was nominated for the 2002 Grammy award for Best Traditional Folk Album. In February 2006, a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC called Hungry For Music paid homage to Case, releasing a three-disc tribute called A Case for Case, with John Prine, Dave Alvin, and Joe Ely, among many others, doing his tunes.
In 2006 Case began blogging what was to become his first memoir As Far As You Can Get Without a Passport, which was published in January 2007, covering his early days of being a music man. Peter continues to write and post autobiographical blogs. Case's Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John CD was nominated for a Grammy award in the Best Traditional Folk Album category in 2007. Then it got very scary, as in January 2009, Case underwent heart surgery, leading to fund raising efforts by other musicians to help defray his medical costs. He battled back to health, and we are happy to report that his latest project, Wig!, was released this summer.
We were over the moon to welcome him in front of the Music Fog cameras during the Americana Fest. A life of giving has yielded giving back to him. Here is one of the tunes we recorded with Peter, "House Rent Party." The lyrics can be found here, and unfortunately are all too familiar to those who are jobless these days!
- Jessie Scott
