I don't rightly remember where I first met Pete Berwick…might have been at the car wash, in the rows of one of Nashville's many pawn shops, or maybe during a barfight in some back-alley Music City dive. You know what they say about the '80s…if you can remember the decade, well….
What I do remember is that Berwick was the real deal, singing the truth to a mud-crusted, foggy-thinking Music Row establishment too deaf to hear the honesty in the guy's rough-hewn vocals, too rabbit-scared to face the reality portrayed by Pete's lyrics. Hell, they all but crucified Steve Earle back in the day – there's no way that they'd embrace Berwick's heresies. The country music biz might have preached "traditionalism" back in the day, but when faced with an artist too proud and talented to genuflect at the altar of Garth, they ran like Little Bo Peep and her sheep in the opposite direction.
Fast-forward to 2009 and Just Another Day In Hell. Nashville's star-making machinery routinely crushes the souls and dashes the hopes of country music hopefuls, but in Pete Berwick's case, they couldn't stomp out the man's dreams. Here he is with a new album, his best yet, bringing blood, sweat, and balls back to a country music genre sorely lacking in all three.
In Nashville, conventional wisdom says, it "all begins with a song." Problem is, too many Music Row tunesmiths are pets kept on a short leash by the artists they hope will record their songs. Berwick pens his own reality and, much like Hank, Waylon, Townes or Steve, his songs are inhabited by heartbreak, humor, insight, and emotion.
For instance, consider the Dylanesque remembrance that is "I Fought With Angels." Fraught with regret, the song's bone-chilling weariness is reinforced by searing guitarplay and a high lonesome harp. "Cold Wind (Baby Come Home)," like John Prine's best material, provides a perfect balance between the simplicity of song and the complexity of emotion.
The ribald "Hello Hand" is scatologically funny in its embrace of Onanism, while the title cut, "Just Another Day In Hell," is a wry jail song in the mold of Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard. Berwick deftly illustrates that there's more than one kind of prison cell, and that the bars that keep us in are sometimes of our own making.
That's just a few songs from Just Another Day In Hell – the rest are every bit as good, each and every one delivered with a reckless country spirit that is equal parts juke-joint soul and honky-tonk energy. Berwick still rocks too hard for Nashville, but isn't that why God and Gram Parsons created alt-country music?
No, I don't remember where I met Pete Berwick, but I'm glad that I did. Pete and his music keep getting better with age, and Just Another Day In Hell sounds like a cold beer at the end of 500 miles of broken road…it's just that damn good!
Rev. Keith A. Gordon, ramblin' man & Pete Berwick fan….
Rev. Gordon authors the About.com Blues Guide, and is a regular contributor to Blurt Magazine. In the past, his wriitngs have appeared in
Creem, High Times and Harp Magazine, among many others.
