Rancho Nicasio show rescheduled for February 2, 2025

 

 

 

I was focused on being a singer and guitarist, and learning to write.

From a young age I had the ability to make up songs, maybe because I felt the rhythms of the words from nursery rhymes, limericks, folk songs we sang in school, hymns at church. I never really studied songwriting, I just listened and then songs came naturally— It turned out one of my ancestors was a prolific hymn writer in the nineteenth century, a man named Hosea Ballou. Maybe that had something to do with it? My mother was obsessed with Shakespeare in an around-the-house way–she’d memorized a hundred-some key lines as a youngster in the thirties… that had an effect–she’d quote him with a laugh during the course of the days—and she’s also the first one who brought a Dylan record into the house–Bringing It All Back Home–I must’ve been 11–and got into it in a big way–one of the great things about Dylan was the songs were long, and each was a huge example of the pictures, the patterns, the rhythms and rhymes, alliterations and jumps in perspective that reeled like a movie projected on the imagination, via the ears–the basic premises of the songs were a revelation themselves—I got a song book that had all the lyrics in and poured over it for ages—he was the greatest, most generous teacher a musician could have.

Long Time Gone/ Dylan cover from my HWY 62 lp

I met a fellow in the Buffalo area named Jon Duffett. A few years older than me, he’d travelled back and forth across the country, between Buffalo and California in 1967, hopping freights and hitching rides, doing the rambling hippie thing. He played an ancient and beat up Martin guitar. Jon and I started writing songs together. I was knocked out to be working with him ’cause as far as I was concerned he was a local hero. We’d play our originals for anyone who could spare a minute or two. “Monopoly Board Blues’ “Talkin’ Christ-like Blues,” “What Do You Do When Your Time Runs Out?” and a lot of others came together in the first few weeks. I was coming up with the premises, and when one caught Jon’s attention, we’d both kick in on the words and music, and it was a good laugh. While epic parties raged outside the door, we’d hide away and write songs in the bathroom of his apartment, digging the echo in there, and sometimes during those parties we’d get a new tune and come busting out into the pad to lay it on the captive audience of stoned teens.

I was always in bands during this time, so I played electric and acoustic gigs—banging the piano with bands for dances at schools and fire-halls, then coffee houses in church basements with my folk guitar.

And I was singing, kind of just talking and shouting at first, but learning to put songs across in a melodic way as I went along.

I listened to all kinds of music from Cecil Taylor’s Conquistador LP to Glen Gould playing Bach, but the radio was the biggest influence. The Beatles brought style, the Stones had amazing lyrics too, and the Beach Boys were the kings of melody—even their rockers had catchy tunes, and every band that made it in the wake of these giants in the sixties had their own recipe. When I landed in California as a street singer I was not only doing blues, but songs by Dylan, Hank Williams, Jagger and Richards, and Jimi Hendrix.

Guitar came together, as a way to colorfully back myself up, over time and endless gigs—I’m not any sort of hot licks specialist–but it all got better and more exciting as I moved along–I’m a slow learner–and a couple thousand hours playing on the streets from SF to Baja and back helped.

Michael Wilhelm of the Charlatans was a legendary San Francisco musician I met street singing, who my mentor during the early 70’s, passing on his knowledge about blues, rock’n roll and fingerpicking, turning me on to Robert Johnson and Texas bluesman Mance Lipscomb, a master musician Mike had learned from directly. Wilhelm and I hung out and performed at the Coffee Gallery on Grant Avenue–i was playing for drinks and tips at one of the great ‘basket houses’ of the folk music era–he got paid—I backed up Michael there too..all of this in my 19th and 20th years. there were a few of us following him around. The conversation among us for a while was all “Guitar…guitar…Wilhelm…guitar…Jorma…guitar…Gary Davis…guitar guitar guitar…” obsessively focused?

I learned the most just by backing myself up as a singer, doing covers of old and new songs, blues country rock’n roll beatles stones animals kinks songs–everything–I had a big sound– “the little kid with the big voice'” –Wilhelm said he could hear me blocks away when I started rocking on my street corner–in North Beach, at Broadway and Columbus.

 

Many Roads To Follow (demo) /the Nerves (Case/Collins)

The Nerves evolved out of this in early 1975, doing our own stripped down/sped up versions of songs by Bacharach, Motown and Stax-Volt–we were determined to make something new of it—all of this on the verge of the great punk rock/new wave upheaval. Hanging On The Telephone came out of that.

Clips from my street singing and bands/ solo career are included in the documentary Peter Case: A Million Miles Away by director Fred Barnes, available now for streaming on Amazon Prime and many other streaming platforms. There’s also a new book by Carey Baker, Down On The Corner, about busking, and a lot of this story is recounted there in detail.

 

Hanging On The Telephone/ The Nerves

 

 

 

Next: lessons of a thousand stages.