Blue Flame
Peter Karp
Label: Rose Cottage Records
Release Date: February 2, 2018
Peter Karp is a storyteller who also happens to be an assertive singer, an insightful songwriter, a spellbinding performer, and a searing slide guitarist. Fortunately, those distinctions aren’t mutually exclusive. Nor is it a contradiction to call Karp both a master of the blues and an Americana aficionado. In Karp’s case, all these threads are bound tightly together.
It’s little wonder then that Blues Blast Magazine described him simply as “One of the most well-respected songwriters in America.” Or that AllMusic.com noted, “Karp is his own man, an artist who blends roots music styles into something that transcends blues, country, R&B and swamp, John Prine’s wordplay, Joe Ely’s rocking instincts, Billy Joe Shaver’s fatalistic outlook.”
Indeed, Karp is all that and more. “I look at writing songs like writing novels,” Karp insists “It becomes my way of sharing the diverse life I’ve led. Each of my albums represents a new chapter in my life story, a sometimes tangled trajectory that has brought me to where I am now.”
Karp is a singular musician whose ability to tap tradition and keep in contemporary, finds him expressing the very essence of a fertile heartland sound. As his friend and collaborator, Rolling Stones guitarist and John Mayall’s sideman Mick Taylor once noted, “Guys like Peter Karp, James Taylor and Bob Dylan embody Americana Blues, and us English guys are inspired by it.” Mick Taylor also offers a searing solo on “The Turning Point, a featured track on Karp’s stunning new album Blue Flame. Due for release February 2nd on Rose Cottage Records, it spotlights Karp’s incendiary guitar work, his keyboard prowess, his expressive harp playing and a rough hewn vocal style that gives each of the album’s 13 songs an indelible presence right from the get-go. Whether it’s the outright drive and determination of “The Arson’s Match” and “Rolling on a Log,” the loping delivery of “The Nietzsche Lounge,” the heart worn sentiment of “Valentine’s Day,” the dogged delivery of “From Where I Stand,” or the quiet persistence of “Round and Around,” Karp manages to create an immediate impression, one that resonates even more with each successive spin.
Co-produced by Karp and Dae Bennett at Bennett Studios, the album also features appearances by Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds on harp and a group of stellar sidemen throughout.
