Peter Mulvey is a walking secret handshake. He has been the street-singing kid in Dublin, the man fronting the storming electric band, the conspiratorial spoken-word craftsman, the Tin Pan Alley delver, an instigator in the occasional Redbird collective, and all through it he has remained the traveler out on the road bringing his music to
audiences from Fairbanks to Bilbao, Santa Monica to Montreal, in clubs, theaters, coffee shops, the Kennedy Center, and old barns.
Peter continues to travel, ears open and wide awake, through the unlimited territory of music. Honing his musicianship, his phrasing, his ability to inhabit a song, he has come into his own, with a sound full of grit and warmth, at the same time startling and familiar.
His latest record, The Good Stuff (Signature Sounds 2012) is a dazzling tour de force through American song: a standards record -- if the definition of "standard" was left in Mulvey's hands. In his universe, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk are presumed colleagues of Tom Waits and Jolie Holland. Bill Frisell and Willie Nelson are obviously in the same wheelhouse. Bobby Charles is still alive and having coffee with a bemused Leonard Cohen somewhere in the Ninth Ward. And more from Chris Smither, Anita Suhanin, Joe Henry, Malvern Taylor, Tim Gearan, David Goodrich. With a 14-song disc in hand, 6 extra songs from the studio session spilled over onto the EP, Chaser. Both are available online and at Peter’s live shows.
THE GOOD STUFF review from TheTelegraph/UK .
