This album from Pistol Pete Wearn will be launched at a special concert at Stafford Gatehouse Theatre on 6 June 2016 - available to pre-order now.
They say the blues is as much a feeling as it is a music. In the acoustic songcraft of Pistol Pete Wearn, the raw holler of the blues is given an English inflection, as if RL Burnside has returned to us with the express intention of ripping up the shires.
On Wearn's new album, Service Station Coffee, the well-travelled troubador documents his rip-roaring live shows - and also further develops his raw style, cooking up a complex, moreish gumbo.
Named Moonshine Magazine's solo blues artist of the year for 2015-16, Pistol Pete has been building an enviable name for himself on the live blues circuit since parting company with the electric outfit .44 Pistol in 2014. Labelled "music to drink, dance and stomp your feet to" by Derby Gig Guide, "devilishly catchy" by Staffs Live and simply "brilliant" on Yelp, the Stafford-based singer and songwriter gets every audience talking.
Armed with an acoustic guitar, a stompbox and occasionally a harmonica, Pistol Pete rips through both witty originals and homages to his blues heritage: his version of 'Make Me Down A Pallet On The Floor', released recently on 7" vinyl by Birmingham's Soul Food Project, reimagines Mississippi John Hurt's standard as a cavernous, bitter singalong; when he cuts into 'Great Balls of Fire' live, meanwhile, few pint glasses are left upright.
Service Station Coffee is Wearn's debut solo album and follows on the heels of 2015's Footstomping Acoustic Blues EP. It hones and enhances his sound yet further, featuring a selection of heart-felt original songs equal parts mordant and lively, wry and lusty. With appearances from folk star Dan Walsh, alt.country songbirds Franklin and Jones, plus fiddle, piano and more besides, the album rounds out Wearn's sound and sets him up for a fresh phase of his career.
And that's saying something: Pete has already played a five-day run at the Edinburgh Fringe in the last year, toured the length and breadth of both England and Scotland, received BBC Radio 6 Music airplay, and supported the likes of ragtime guitar legend Stefan Grossman, American folk superstars The Stray Birds and New Orleans songwriter Andrew Duhon.
His is, in short, a blues holler you'll soon be hearing in every shire of the land.
April 2016
