REVIEW: Peter Case, Full Service No Waiting (Vanguard)
- Daniel Aloi
Peter Case is so well-traveled, he could sit alone in a room and come up with something that perfectly captures life on the road.
That was how the songs on Full Service No Waiting, his sixth solo album, came about. Locked inside with his tools -- a Gibson J-45 and his "acoustic 1960s word processor," a manual Smith-Corona -- he looks inside and draws on his experiences, creating original work with the storytelling quality and just-right feeling of classic folk songs (as in "Honey Child, a song that could be 70 years old). And he has been off the road long enough to have perspective on both the leaving and the staying.
Not that he waxes all wistful and romantic about his highway miles. There are some regrets heard from the songwriter's (by now) resident cast of down-and-outers, drifters and small-time criminals on the run. In "On The Way Downtown," (written with his son, Joshua) the narrator is surrounded by the ghosts of people from his past, even as he keeps going out there with open expectations.
Case often writes from his own heart, looking for the same truth in himself that he brings out from his characters. Coming to terms with approaching midlife (and finding it good), he assesses his grounded existence in "Beautiful Grind" -- finding little moments in the family day-to-day that add up to a meaningful life together for two people.
He's also reflective about a defining chapter from his more than two decades as a musician. "Still Playin'" closes the album with recollections of Case's days as a street singer, busking on corners and sleeping on floors. A hard life sometimes, but one he wouldn't have traded for anything. He also recalls good times playing and singing in "See Through Eyes," even though "we laughed and threw it away."
Never much of a musical experimenter, Case has a signature sound that is a comforting constant on each album -- descending guitar figures and harmonica playing, plaintive singing. It's all organic, helping his vividly drawn characters to breathe. This stamp is on all of his songs, even the ones inspired by traditional music.
Producer Andrew Williams highlights Case's mastery of dynamics, with a band including overbooked roots-rock sessionman Greg Liesz, who plays an array of guitars.
There are some people who look back on Case's tenure in '80s rock bands the Nerves and Plimsouls, and wonder, upon hearing him as a singer-songwriter, where he changed along the way. I'm not one of those.
Case stays faithful to his heart and the lure of the open road -- even as he ignores it, contentedly staying at home in California, the land he hightailed it out of Buffalo for, as a teenager so many years ago.
Call it Americana, call it Triple-A, call it Contemporary Folk. Whatever the label, this is honest music.
