Customer Reviews

Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John

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Almost 30 years ago Peter Case and the Plimsouls first came to many people's attention in a now famous scene in the Nicholas Cage vehicle "Valley Girl," in which Cage takes his girlfriend to a club to hear the Plimsouls, telling her "this is real music, not that techno (stuff) you listen to." Today the Valley Girl fad is, fortunately, long forgotten, but Peter Case, now usually a solo performer, is still mining musical gold. Here he performs mostly solo, but with well-chosen collaborators on several tracks, including "Every 24 Hours," which features some characteristically brilliant playing (and backing vocals) by British songwriter and guitar wiz Richard Thompson.

The title alludes to the great bluesman Sleepy John Estes, who serves as a kind of presiding spirit. But it's not a "tribute record," and in fact there's only one blues cover here (not a Sleepy John song). Instead you get Case at top form as singer, songwriter, and guitarist. There's a unity to these songs, most of which return to the same group of themes: justice, faith, life on the road, looking back at your own past, looking around you at how the world is. "Every 24 Hours," "Ain't Gonna Worry No More," and "I'm Gonna Change My Ways" are as good as anything Peter has ever written, and the rest aren't far behind. And since it's mostly Case and his guitar you really get a chance to hear his abilities as a player.

Case has reportedly said that this is the record he's always wanted to make. His fans are likely to agree that it's also the record they've always wanted to hear. And if you're not a fan yet you're likely to be one once you give this record a listen or two.

...as Peter Case reminds us on "Million Dollars Bail", one of eleven reasons to lay your hat on the table and stay awhile. While Case is painting a picture of injustice as it relates to the haves and have nots, he could just as easily be referring to the vagaries of the music world - where an artist of Cases' stature is left to paint his passionate songs of love, loss, pain, and hope in the shadows of an increasingly complacent universe.

Singing in his clear passionate tenor, mostly alone with his guitar, Case mourns the loss of the dream in "Palookaville", at the same time he champions the Terry Malloy's of the land - those who are still fighting in a world that has forgotten them.

Richard Thompson shows up on "Every 24 Hours" to lend a hand on vocals and guitar. The line "who moved the furniture, who turned out the lights" is the cry of everyman, and everywoman, amazed and dazed at how difficult it is to maneuver in a world that changes so quickly. Where is the ground to stand on? Thankfully, Case offers some suggestions - love and hope are just around the corner.

"Underneath the Stars" could be just another token song for the homeless in the hands of a songwriter with less experience and insight than Case. Here he sings the plight of the "new face" seen on the streets, under the bridges, and alleyways of your hometown, and challenges the listener to count their blessings - it just might be you who wears "the pauper's crown" one day.

In "Ain't Gonna Worry No More" all the skills that make Peter Case one of the true great songwriters operating in the world today are at their peak - the lyrical eye of the poet, the passionate cry of the rocker, the emotional vulnerability of the `bluesman', the clarity and closeness of the story-teller. This is a true folk epic. From desert flowers to crazy store clerks, from nightmare warlike visions and puppet governments to Lightnin' Hopkins playin' somewhere, sometime, USA, Case cries "We seen a lot of troubles now the Ghost is gone."

Thankfully, the ghost of Sleepy John, Lightnin' Hopkins and other greats is here, in the voice and songs of Peter Case. The love affair starts here. "Come on Down..."

I read somewhere that Lester Bangs used to listen to an album beginning to end in one sitting and sometimes over and over beginning to end in one sitting before even thinking about writing a review. I used to do that all the time (the listening-all-the-way-through part, not the review writing). It's hard for me to find time to do that one-sitting thing anymore. But I did it one early morning with Peter Case's new album `Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John' -- 'Every 24 Hours' through 'Palookaville' at about 5:30 or so ... then 'Get Away Blues' through 'That Soul Twist' on the drive in to work (with a little sitting in the parking garage to get it all in).

This album begins with Case "driving" down the road, a place with which he is intimately familiar (having left his childhood home at 15 and traveled through the Northeast and Midwest with his guitar on his way to the West Coast, where he was a street singer in San Francisco in the early 70s and became the singer-songwriter icon he is now, living in Los Angeles). The album ends in the same place (albeit further down the line) as its final song 'That Soul Twist' saunters leisurely on until it's just out of sight, the notes dissipating just over the horizon. Indeed, the road is central to this album's genius. Case himself refers to the road possessively on this album as `my highway' ... and the truth is we all benefit from joining him on his journey through this collection of songs.

With `Sleepy John,' Case continues (as with all his albums) to capture the pivotal themes of life -- every life is as valuable as the next ...every life is made up of experiences that are as real as the next ... no one is a label or should be labeled ... justice, grace, compassion and, above all, Love are essential ... we all face the `fork in the road' referenced in the classic Peter Case song `Beyond the Blues' (recorded on `Six Pack of Love' and done compellingly live by Case on the recent tribute to his music `A Case for Case') ... and, in the end, as Case sings on this new album, `it's how you live and why.'

I once read about Case's `Beyond the Blues,' "... i love the way he does it in performance (especially when he unplugs his guitar so that it sounds like a guitar!!!! and sings off mike so his voice sounds like a voice!!!! ...)." My dearest friend, who I introduced to Case's music almost 20 years ago, says that "anything peter does acoustically and any song he sings about love and any song LIVE makes me fall in love with the entire world, during those songs everything is beautiful, even the sh***y stuff [in life]...." These observations could not be more accurate. And this album is presented in just that fashion ... pure, honest, essential.

Case's `Sleepy John' album is required listening. It is the Peter Case album we've been waiting for.

Peter Case's new CD "Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John" is an excellent acoustic folk set. Case shines with urgent vocals, acoustic guitar, great melodies & lyrics. Richard Thompson guests on vocals & guitar on the bright opener "Every 24 Hours," "I should've called home fore she went to sleep; I pray the Lord for her soul to keep; Tomorrow will tell who's been tending the sheep." "Million Dollars Bail" tells a sad story of how money may purchase justice but cannot buy happiness, "She dialed 911, but the cops didn't come on time; They found her on the marble with a bullet through her eye. ... There's two kinds of justice, everybody knows, one for folks up on the hill, the others down below." Case's music is deceptively simple such as on the lovely "Ain't Gonna Worry No More" with it's lulling guitar and lyrics busting with memory, "Fourteen dressed in his father's hat, even had a little mustache just like that; Told the crazy lady at the corner shop, 'I'll take a pack of Camels and bottle of Schnapps.'" "Forget tomorrow & that jam you're in; You're alive right now as you ever been," Peter sings on the losers' lament "That Soul Twist." Case's new CD is an excellent folk set from one of our most consistent artists. Enjoy!

Peter Case's first studio album in five years is The Real Deal -- stripped-down, bluesy and gritty, with a superb set of songs. 'Ain't Gonna Worry No More' and 'Underneath the Stars' are particular standouts.
Hope the Grammy voters remember this one when it comes time to nominate the year's best in Contemporary Folk.

Case's credentials as a street-savvy folk troubadour have long since eclipsed his previous power pop identity with the Nerves and Plimsouls. Still, his well-traveled, socially observant lyrics draw upon the same well of honesty and directness as his earlier work, but without the electric guitars and drums. Case sings to his own strummed and picked accompaniment supplemented by an occasional guest guitarist or vocalist, performing on a small scale that opens a window on his intimate live performances.

The life of a touring musician is a central theme in Case's songwriting, reporting from the road on "24 Hours" and "The Open Road Song," and considering the philosophical and social issues that present themselves in the rush of every day life. Songs of social inequity ("Million Dollars Bail"), humanity gripped in the crush of homelessness ("Underneath the Stars"), and faded glory ("Palookaville") are startling in their detail. Even when writing in a third person narrative, Case writes with first person experience.

In addition to nine new titles, Case revives one of his earliest compositions, 1970's "Just Hangin' On," and covers the traditional "Get Away Blues." He's augmented by Richard Thompson's guitar and voice on "Every 24 Hours," vocalist Lysa Flores on "Some Bright Mornin' Blues," Norm Hamlet (of Merle Haggard's Strangers) on pedal steel for "That Soul Twist," and singer/guitarist Carlos Guitarlos on "Underneath the Stars." Case continues to develop and refine his considerable craft, deepening the experience and wisdom of his songs and performances. 4-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2007 hyperbolium dot com]

Every time I listen to Peter Case I think about a cold grey dawn on a colorado exit ramp. It was raining. It was beautiful. So is this album. You should buy it.
Thomas

You can tell a great singer-songwriter if they're able to strip the songs down to just guitar (or piano) & vocal and make them work as good, if not better, than they would if they were fully-produced with drums, keyboards, bass, etc.

Peter Case is one of those singer-songwriters. This album is as free-flowing and natural as a conversation with the man himself. I wish more accomplished songwriters would make genuine, no-frills records like this instead of hiding behind contemporary (over)production values (a la Springsteen's latest).

Evocative of the spirit of the great bluesmen, with traces of Plastic Ono Band-era John Lennon in it's off-hand honesty and immediacy, albeit less wrenching than Lennon.

This album is timeless, while at the same time belonging unmistakably to the right here, and right now.

It's hard to think of many others who are still putting out such amazing stuff after so long a career. Peter Case hasn't traveled a straight line by any means, but there is in fact a line somehow from his astonishing 1986 debut to today. This album is more Icewater, say, than Steel Strings, but as the man himself sang in Hidden Love, in these empty rooms a guitar makes a band.

Peter Case is an American treasure. Please, I urge you to give this one, to give this man, a listen.

I'm being generous with three stars, if truth be told. There's only one song here that I would seek out to listen to, and that's "I Ain't Gonna Worry No More." Like the other songs here it doesn't have a great melody, but it does have a beautiful guitar figure and a great lyric:

"back then they had a war that weren't no good
everybody said they'd do what they could
some went to canada some went down
with the FBI to the jail downtown

bananas are cheap that's united fruit
they cut off labor unions at the root
murdered the tribes to clear the way
for the puppet government & the CIA

hear the roar of jets comin' over the park
the flow of last cigarettes in the dark
do yr bones turn to water? does the sky turn black?
caught at ground zero in a missile attack"

With the exception of the last two tracks, ("I'm Gonna Change My Ways" with electric guitar and "That Soul Twist" with pedal steel), this is Peter Case and his acoustic guitar, with songs of life on the road, songs of the down and out, and songs that rail against war and injustice, all of which could be great but for the quality of the songs.

Case's best album remains FULL SERVICE NO WAITING from 1998. That is a stunning album full of great melodies and great instrumentation, and certainly the one I would recommend to the new listener. This one is for the hard-core Case fan.