The case for Peter Case

Peter Case
Mon. October 15
Live In Concert
Buttonwood Tree
605 Main Street, Middletown CT
Tickets $20 to Benefit Gilead Community Services
TIX: 860-344-9674

Since I've moved into town, I've been itching to bring some of my favorite musicians here, and to begin to create another wrinkle in the town's music scene.

Our first concert with Michael Fracasso was a great success, and a lot of fun, so when the opportunity to host Peter Case became available, I jumped on it.

I've know Peter Case's music since his hit video/single A Million Miles Away, when he was fronting a band called the Plimsouls (who reunited for some West Coast gigs last year). A few years later he released a solo album which demonstrated that he was a young musician who could make an acoustic guitar rock, and who understood that rock and roll was born in the blues. The albums which followed were all notable, in particular The Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar. The album's title may have spelt it's doom, but it is truly one of the great albums of the last twenty years, and as a result, out-of-print, for nearly a dozen years. Vanguard Records, which was discovering talented songwriters again, picked up on Peter and he created half a dozen fine albums for them, including a wonderous tribute to acoustic bluesman Mississippi John Hurt, called Avalon Blues for which Case was the executive producer. His latest, Let Us Know Praise Sleepy John, is not a set of blues covers, but a set of modern blues and laments by a man who has seen the world and knows its troubles well.

The Buttonwood Tree is a great and intimate way to see an artist up close. The money raised is split between the artist, the charity (Gilead Community Services - a mental health organization which serves Middlesex County), and the venue. Lucy and I take nothing from the gate but the joy of bringing this great music to town.

Join us, and help a good cause.