Monday, May 11, 2009

Dave Perkins -- Pistol City Holiness

Three or four years ago I wrote a long essay in Paste on blues music, and its impact on my life. A few weeks later I received a very nice letter from one Dave Perkins, who told me that he also loved the blues, and wondered if he could send me his rough demos of blues recordings. "Sure," I wrote him back. So he sent them. And they were good. Really good. They kicked. So I decided to check up a bit on this Dave Perkins. It turns out that Dave is a Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt’s Center for the Study of Religion and Culture, and currently serves as Administrative Director for Vanderbilt’s Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture program. Cool. It also turns out he's a pretty well-known guitar slinger, and has produced and recorded with the likes of Steve Taylor (Chagall Guevera), Ray Charles, Carole King, Papa John Creach, Willie Nelson, John Belushi, Over the Rhine, Squeeze, Lucinda Williams, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, Hunter S. Thompson, Phil Keaggy, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Ashley Cleveland, and Charlie Daniels. And more.

"Okay," I thought to myself. "I'd like to meet this guy sometime." We exchanged emails from time to time, but I didn't have the chance to meet him until the recently concluded Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College. Dave was there presenting a paper on rock bands influenced by Flannery O'Connor and southern gothic culture. I was there to play American Idol-like judge in a new bands contest. And we finally met at Calvin and had a wonderful dinnertime conversation over Chinese food, and Dave promised to send off his new album as soon as it was mixed. It arrived today.

Have you ever experienced the sonic equivalent of being slammed against a wall? That's this album Pistol City Holiness. These are the most impolite blues ever performed by a Christian, and I mean that in the best possible sense. Well, maybe Rev. Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are in this rude choir as well, but that's pretty great company. Dave shreds on the guitar and wails like a banshee, and the superb band (Reece Wynans, Richard Price, T.J. Klay, Mel Watts, Ashley Cleveland) absolutely rips it up behind him. This is primal stuff, it rocks like crazy, and it's the unfiltered deal, both sonically and lyrically, featuring tales of knife fights, long gone sweethearts, the Holy Ghost, cherryfish and chicken, tent revivals, unemployment, and mercies that are new every morning. It also features the stellar lines "She's a hell of a woman when she's all dressed up for church," "I would hang with the Baptists if they could get that girl for me" and "I coulda been a preacher man but there's a hellhound on my trail." Amen, brother. You and me and Robert Johnson make three. I don't really qualify, at least on the blues front, but I know I'm in damn good company.

9 comments:

Ty said...

Your post caught my eye. Where could I get a copy of this album?

Andy Whitman said...

Ty, it's available from Dave's MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/daveperkinsmusic

Brother-in-law Bill said...

6 degrees of separation time--you mention Ashley Cleveland. When we lived in California we heard Ashley several times and knew her parents, who were members of the same Presbyterian church as we were. She (Ashley) always had a great Janis Joplin kind of voice, and I always found it hard to believe that her parents, good folks that they were, were her parents. And that's not meant as a putdown of her or them.

Andy Whitman said...

Bill, Ashley Cleveland has a more than respectable solo career in her own right. She has a voice for the ages, and although she occasionally drifts in the direction of Christian schlockland, she usually uses it in on raw, blues-based material. And that's when she's at her best. Her new album "God Don't Never Change" is a collection of covers from Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Willie Johnson, etc. It's pretty great.

Here she is performing "Gimme Shelter." Sorry, Mick and Keith, but she's got you beat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74qWOdNYjLc

Ty said...

Thanks Andy. I noticed the last couple of months have been rough. I hope things are looking on the upside.

hallga77 said...

Dave Perkins sounds interesting and he seems to hangout with good folk.

My wife and I love Ashley. We decided to check her out on the advice of Bill Mallonee and we were blown away after catching her live. We have tried to see her whenever she appears anywhere within 100 miles or so. Solo acoustic she's a treat but even moreso when she brings husband Kenny & band. The lady can rock.
Highly recommended!

Tim

Hayseed said...

I am very thankful to have had DP as a mentor, brother, and friend. He truly is a wonderful human being. His music and his living example have made a HUGE difference in my life.

John McClure said...

I went to the CD release party and Nashville's 3rd and Lindsley club last Thursday and was blown away. A first rate band playing first rate music all of which expressed a powerful desire for transcendence through love, sex, salvation, healing, reunion, and friendship. I strongly recommend the CD.

Mike Bennett said...

This is a wonderful review of an equally wonderful album. Dave's voice and guitar have been absent for too long. Praise God they're back!!! this album is everything Andy said and more. I've been a fan of Dave's since the early 90's, and he never fails to deliver the goods!!