In At McCabe’s, veteran americana troubadour Peter Case delivers a live performance at the peak of his powers.
Peter Case has had a long career with no shortage of exploration: from a background in folk, blues and rock ‘n’ roll while busking in 1970s San Francisco, to fronting punk and rock-tinged bands such as The Nerves (who put out Hanging on the Telephone, later a hit for Blondie) and The Plimsouls, who scored a radio hit with A Million Miles Away. Then? All the way into a long, successful solo career that saw him become the godfather of the americana genre, earning him three Grammy nominations, and featuring collaborations with the likes of Ry Cooder, Merle Haggard and Richard Thompson.
Case’s career doesn’t quite require an introduction. So why the context? Because At McCabe’s: My Life to Live, Case’s most recent release, is a live performance recorded at the iconic Santa Monica McCabe’s Guitar Shop, and coming at a point where Case’s musical career has crossed the 50-year mark, there’s bound to be a retrospective angle to it, and there is. At McCabe’s is a tour through Case’s songbook, and sees him holding sway mostly with nothing more than an acoustic guitar, at times a piano, and a small backing band, wending his way through songs that showcase his trademark story-driven lyricism. Between tracks, he dives into actual stories, bits that stand out just as much as the songs, peppering this live album with polished comic material.
“We’re becoming victims of certain stories,” Case says.
Not in this record. At McCabe’s shows us a performer who is entirely at home, maybe especially at the Santa Monica guitar shop, but probably just about everywhere. About a third through Entella Hotel, a timer audibly goes off on someone’s phone. Case chimes: “I’m not here“, and keeps on going. He later turns forgetting someone’s name into a bit about “sending a guy down to the archive” whenever you can’t quite think of something off the cuff.
At over an hour long, this level of variety and crowd engagement keeps the performance alive, and At McCabe’s captures a rawness and live feel that does not compromise its listenability. And don’t let the term “retrospective” fool you: this isn’t quite a nostalgic piece. It just so happens to be a backwards tour of Case’s career, going from his take on Washboard Sam’s Flying Crow Blues to a set of songs released in the last decade, then to songs originally recorded during his time with the Plimsouls, or first released on his debut album, and back to recent material, of which there is no shortage. Case’s songwriting is still steadily rolling forward, knocking down whatever’s in the way.
California might be the epicentre of the AI debacle and the current assault on the music industry, but if there’s still space for storytelling troubadours like Peter Case, and there certainly is, then At McCabe’s is a solid sign that good things are bound to stick around. And as it happens, it’s also an album that signs off abruptly, with a shaggy dog story that begins “Here’s another story that goes; and the whole house was full of pigs‘” and sprawls off into nowhere, keeping things good and open.
Here’s to other stories, then. Everyone’s listening.
