Dave Perkins

Dave Perkins - Pistol City Holiness - 2009 - Lugnut

Dave Perkins is an artist whose musical journey crisscrosses the map of American music. Perkins’ work as a guitarist includes playing bluegrass and swing with fiddle-great Vassar Clements, Texas renegade-country with Jerry Jeff Walker, singer-songwriter pop with Carole King, alternative rock with Chagall Guevara, folk with Guy Clark, blues and jazz with violinist Papa John Creach, alt-pop with Over The Rhine, reggae with Mystic Meditations, and industrial hard-core with Passafist. Then, there were the occasional odd jobs, such as accompanying Ray Charles on his “3/4 Time” video. If there is a style of American music that calls for guitar, chances are Dave Perkins has played it, and played it with passion and skill. With Pistol City Holiness, Perkins comes full circle to his first love—the blues. “The blues was the first music to capture my imagination. It grabbed me because it was something other—alien—and, yet, at the same time, deeply familiar. I’ve never gotten over it. I’ve worked in a lot of different styles of music, but my approach to each one was and will always be shaped by the blues.” Reflecting on the creation of Pistol City Holiness, Perkins says, “I wanted to make an album that brought back the excitement I felt when I first heard Muddy Waters, Cream, Fred McDowell, and Peter Green. And, I wanted to record with the musicians I shared the most history with.” Featured on the album are three of Perkins’ longest running musical relationships—Richard “Hombre” Price, Reese Wynans, and Mel Watts. Their musical association is decades deep. Like Perkins, each of these players has a significant performance pedigree with ties to artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Lucinda Williams. Pistol City Holiness builds on the model of the traditional Chicago blues band, where guitar, piano, and harmonica play important roles as solo instruments. Along with Perkins’ guitar and Wynans’ piano and organ, TJ Klay fills out the section on blues harp. Around those foundational elements, aspects of techno, southern and alternative rock are interwoven to create a bracing, muscular take on blues-inflected American music. Much like his sound, Perkins’ lyrics are simultaneously traditional and innovative. Perkins brings a contemporary poetic sense to his treatment of the blues even when dealing with age-old themes. Long Eleven Road is the story of a blue-collar family’s forced dislocation in pursuit of illusive employment. In Break, Perkins speaks for the frustrated, hard working person denied their piece of the American dream; Perkins sings, “The taste of life is oh so sweet—they’re finding money in the street—some folks live a life that’s charmed—some folks can go through hell unharmed. But, hard luck days have caught me in a corner for a kill—why does the road seem to always run up hill? I want a break that I don’t have to make!” Two of the album’s songs revisit a topic that has been present in the blues since the beginning--religion and spirituality. With Preacher Blues, the womanizing, cult-of-personality preacher is Perkins’ target. On a more positive note, Revival speaks to the healing power of community for the prodigal son. Perkins’ songs, Flown and Bottles and Knives give fresh perspectives on the difficulties of relationships. Here, Perkins anchors the album by working with what has traditionally been the first topic of the blues—love, or, the lack of it. A brew of musical energies, Pistol City Holiness blurs boundary lines between styles, and makes an artistic statement that speaks to the variety and depth of Perkins’ experience—musical and otherwise—all while keeping the blues as the emotional, musical, and spiritual center. - from Album Notes © http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/daveperkins

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Dave Perkins is, perhaps, best known as one of the creative forces behind the early-1990s rock band Chagall Guevara. Some may remember him as one of the architects responsible for mid-90s industrial/alt-rock terrorists Passafist, whereas others may know him as the producer behind such successful CCR bands as the Newsboys. Whether he's playing guitar behind Jerry Jeff Walker or singing with Amy Grant, Perkins' talent has always risen to the top. One of Perkins' greatest loves has always been the blues, however, and with the release of Pistol City Holiness the artist rediscovers the vibrancy, electricity, and excitement that got him into music in the first place. Influenced and inspired by blues greats like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, and blues-rockers like Cream and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Perkins has delivered in Pistol City Holiness a stunning collection of ambitious blues-rock tunes that was almost a decade in the making. Pistol City Holiness opens with a squawk and a holler, the muddy Delta grit oozing from Dave Perkins' serpentine fretwork, his vocals gruff and supple and soulful all at once. Although the song has inherited the spirit of a hundred juke-joint jams, its underlying funky swagger, metal-edged guitar, and contemporary poor man's lyrics clearly stamp it as a fine example of 21st century electric blues, the song swinging wilder and harder than a blacksmith's hammer. The album's lone cover, Don Nix's classic Memphis blues standard "Goin' Down," is provided a tune-up under the hood and a fresh coat of paint up top. With roaring, whiskey-soaked vocals driven by Perkins' brutal six-string assault, T.J. Klay's rampaging harpwork, and a fine bit of nearly-hidden piano-pounding courtesy of former Double Trouble keyboardist Reece Wynans, Perkins and his manic mechanics hot rod "Goin' Down" from its turbocharged, flat-track origins into some sort of interstellar, space-ace speed machine. Perkins gets down-and-dirty with the powerful "Long Eleven Road," the song itself a showcase for Klay's tortured harpwork. With a wiry guitar riff that chases its tale in circles, Perkins' best black cat moan vocals, and Klay's timely blasts of soul, the song is a hard luck tale of a factory ghost town where little is left but sin and degradation. With a true Delta vibe that reminds of Son House's most apocalyptic visions, "Long Eleven Road" is a potent modern American fable of hopelessness and misfortune. If "Long Eleven Road" is the story of hard luck men and long suffering women facing another brutal workweek, "Bottles and Knives" is a rollicking and curious mix of Chicago and New Orleans blues music that signals the arrival of the weekend. With the entire band playing helter-skelter, Wynan's flailing ivories are matched by Perkins' joyful, ramshackle guitar solos. Perkins' humorous lyrics are pure genius - "bottles and knives flyin' all around this place, we're gonna leave here darlin' before I lose my pretty face" - the song's protagonist claims that his girl ain't happy goin' out on Saturday night unless he gets into a fight. It's 1930s blues jukin' reality set to music, delivered with reckless abandon (and highly-amped instruments). Blues guitarist Jimmy Nalls sits in for "Devil's Game," the former Sea Level fretburner adding some tasty acoustic notes behind Perkins' greasy slide guitar runs. The song's languid pace is deceptively framed by an underlying rhythm that moves at the speed of kudzu growing, blasts of ice-cold sax complimenting the red-hot notes of Klay's harmonica and Perkins' flame-thrower guitar. Lyrically, the song is a Southern Gothic dirge of sore temptation and the wages of sin, punishment meted out in an aching limbo that again evokes the blessed ghost of the mighty Son House. Perkins' "Preacher Blues" is a blistering, raw blues-rock rave-up with noisy, buzzing rhythms, blustery vocals, and whipsmart lyrics that reference Robert Johnson and his fabled hellhounds. The song is probably also the best showcase on Pistol City Holiness for Perkins' phenomenal six-string skills, the two-and-a-half-minute rocker virtually humming and crackling with the electricity generated by the guitarist's rattling leads. The album closes with the explosive "Mercy in the Morning," a full-tilt, anarchic, stomp-and-stammer that throws dynamite in the water in the form of scorching guitarwork, darts of gospel-tinged and honky-tonk piano, powerful drumbeats, and shots of machine-gun harp notes that dive-bomb your ears like a horde of angry hornets. Those of us that have followed Dave Perkins' lengthy career as sideman, band member, producer, and solo artist have never been surprised by the artist's immense talent, deep musical knowledge, and ability to perform well in nearly any musical genre. Nothing could prepare the listener for the nuclear-strength fall-out of Pistol City Holiness that cascades from your speakers. Perkins has created a masterpiece that fuses Mississippi Delta and Chicago blues tradition with a hard-rocking, guitar-driven blues-rock sound that fans haven't heard since Stevie Ray Vaughan burst onto the scene. Although it's hard to find, go out and beg, borrow, or steal a copy of Pistol City Holiness.... (self-produced, released June 2, 2009) ***** About.com Rating By & © Reverend Keith A. Gordon, About.com Guide © 2012 About.com. All rights reserved http://blues.about.com/od/cddvdreviews/fr/DavePerkins.htm

What a great title for a blues album! A raw, rootsy, and full tilt jam all the way through makes this one of the best discs of 2009. Perkins had virtually gone into dustbowl obscurity since his stint with Chagall Guevara and his '95 industrial-laden Passafist project. You can't keep a quality guitarist down for long though. It's hard to believe this is the same guy who gave us a solo disc way back in '87. I still love the song "Orbit" from that vinyl in my collection. But I digress... "Pistol City Holiness" covers the familiar blues formulas with reckless abandon. Nothing new is here, but relentlessly dirty, gritty blues are meshed out on the blues club floor. “Break” kicks in and you can hear the strong chops of TJ Klay on the harp. A slight modern element of rhythmic looping throws you a surprise before “Going Down” explodes with a wall of electric guitar and piano. There is not one sleeper on this 12-song rocking blues offering. The musicians don’t appear to be the standard session players either. True blues feeling comes shining through at every corner. My only question is, ”Where have you been hiding Dave Perkins these last 10-15 years?” I guess my musical tastes ran in different circles back then. I would have gobbled up everything of yours in sight had I known you were still kicking around. © thecannyshark © 1996 - 2010 The Phantom Tollbooth http://www.tollbooth.org/2010/reviews/dperkins.html

It has been twenty two years since Dave Perkins released his last solo project. It was called The Innocence and was released on the unfortunately short lived What Records. Well it's twenty two years later and Dave has released his newest solo offering called Pistol City Holiness. The question is was it worth the wait? The answer is beyond a shadow of a doubt absolutely YES! "Pistol City Holiness" could very well, at least in my opinion, be one of the best rock n roll records ever produced. I say this as someone who has been listening to rock music for well over fifty years and I take my music very, very seriously. Falling into the category of blues rock this project screams total professionalism from beginning to end. With the exception of the classic "Going Down" by Don Nix all of the tunes are Dave Perkins originals. Musicians that Dave has brought along for this musical ride include among others, Rick Cua, Ashley Cleveland, Reece Wynans and some red hot smokin' harp playing by TJ Klay. That's harmonica to those unfamiliar with the blues. Some of the tunes presented here especially "Bottles And Knives" & "Train At Night" need to be listened to with a fire extinguisher close at hand. They just might cause spontaneous combustion, they're that hot. Dave's vocals on this album are awesome and fit the music to a tee, pained, raucous and weathered. © Chris MacIntosh aka Grandfather Rock © 1996 - 2009 The Phantom Tollbooth http://www.tollbooth.org/2009/reviews/perkins.html

One of Perkins' greatest loves has always been the blues, however, and with the release of Pistol City Holiness the artist rediscovers the vibrancy, electricity, and excitement that got him into music in the first place. Influenced and inspired by blues greats like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, and blues-rockers like Cream and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Perkins has delivered in Pistol City Holiness a stunning collection of ambitious blues-rock tunes that was almost a decade in the making. By & © Reverend Keith A. Gordon, About.com Guide © 2012 About.com. All rights reserved http://blues.about.com/od/cddvdreviews/fr/DavePerkins.htm Dave, speaking about "Pistol City Holiness" said that “My first professional sensibilities in music-making were in blues and blues-rock, and that's what I've come back to...but my journey has been wildly diverse, between here and there.” Buy Chagall Guevara's s/t album featuring Dave Perkins, and support the blues and great music [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: File size = 111 Mb]

TRACKS

1 Break 4:19
2 Going Down 3:55
3 Cherryfish & Chicken 2:00
4 Revival 3:35
5 Long Eleven Road 5:03
6 Bottles and Knives 3:53
7 Train at Night 3:24
8 Flown 4:32
9 Tiger Texas 3:46
10 Devil's Game 5:31
11 Preacher Blues 2:30
12 Mercy in the Morning 6:16

All songs composed by Dave Perkins except "Going Down" by Don Nix

MUSICIANS

Dave Perkins - Electric & Acoustic Guitar, Organ, Piano, Vocals
Jim Nalls - Acoustic Guitar on "Devil's Game"
Richard Price, Rick Cua, Byron House - Bass
Reese Wynans - Organ, Piano
Paul Griffith, Craig Krampf, Mel Watts, John Elliott - Drums
West Tennessee Jeff - Saxophone
TJ Klay - Harmonica
Odessa Settles, Ashley Cleveland - Background Vocals