Paul Pena
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location: back to the wilderness
listening to: static
registered: 1999.11.22
posts: 6470
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MUSIC REVIEW
Paul Pena back onstage playing the best of
blues
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 6/5/2001
CAMBRIDGE - Everything that is good
about music - and we're not talking about
corporate, consultant-driven garbage - was on
display at the House of Blues on Saturday. Paul
Pena, a snake-bitten bluesman who originally
grew up on Cape Cod, played his first local show
in 21 years and was captivating.
Pena wrote ''Jet Airliner,'' a hit in 1977 by the
Steve Miller Band. It came from a 1973 Pena
album, ''New Train,'' that was held up at the time
because of management difficulties and it only
came out last year.
''You got to go through hell before you get to
heaven,'' Pena sang on ''Jet Airliner'' at the House
of Blues. The verse is a veritable theme for Pena,
a blind singer who dropped out of the business
for years to take care of his sick wife, Babe, who
died of kidney failure in 1991. He later had a fire
at his home and was wrongly diagnosed with
pancreatic cancer (for which he had
chemotherapy), but he really had pancreatitis.
Pena then distanced himself further from the commercial world by exploring
Tuvan throat singing - a deep bass style that uses thick overtones. He
traveled to Tuva (located between Siberia and Mongolia) in 1995 and won
a vocal competition that appeared on ''Genghis Blues,'' an Oscar-nominated
documentary film.
Sitting on a stool, Pena first treated Saturday's audience to a set of
solo-acoustic blues. His fingers danced over the guitar strings, coupled with
sharply accented slide modulations, as he made his own such tunes as
Robert Johnson's ''Hellhound on My Trail'' and Elmore James's ''Dust My
Broom.'' He finished many songs with Tuvan bass quavers that had the walls
rattling.
Pena, who grew up in Harwich and now lives in San Francisco,
demonstrated the five styles of Tuvan singing before taking a set break.
He returned with a band led by local keyboardist Bruce Katz and guitarist
Chris Brown. Although they were clearly unrehearsed (and had met Pena
only that day), they embarked on a ragged-but-right romp through traditional
blues, as well as ''Jet Airliner'' and ''New Train,'' with its still-relevant line:
''Get on the new train and ride/ Buy our ticket for a brand new season.'' One
can only hope that Pena's next season will earn him the credit he so richly
deserves.
This story ran on page 3 of the Boston Globe on 6/5/2001.
� Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
[ Se
–--
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
Reg
(view)
MUSIC REVIEW
Paul Pena back onstage playing the best of
blues
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 6/5/2001
CAMBRIDGE - Everything that is good
about music - and we're not talking about
corporate, consultant-driven garbage - was on
display at the House of Blues on Saturday. Paul
Pena, a snake-bitten bluesman who originally
grew up on Cape Cod, played his first local show
in 21 years and was captivating.
Pena wrote ''Jet Airliner,'' a hit in 1977 by the
Steve Miller Band. It came from a 1973 Pena
album, ''New Train,'' that was held up at the time
because of management difficulties and it only
came out last year.
''You got to go through hell before you get to
heaven,'' Pena sang on ''Jet Airliner'' at the House
of Blues. The verse is a veritable theme for Pena,
a blind singer who dropped out of the business
for years to take care of his sick wife, Babe, who
died of kidney failure in 1991. He later had a fire
at his home and was wrongly diagnosed with
pancreatic cancer (for which he had
chemotherapy), but he really had pancreatitis.
Pena then distanced himself further from the commercial world by exploring
Tuvan throat singing - a deep bass style that uses thick overtones. He
traveled to Tuva (located between Siberia and Mongolia) in 1995 and won
a vocal competition that appeared on ''Genghis Blues,'' an Oscar-nominated
documentary film.
Sitting on a stool, Pena first treated Saturday's audience to a set of
solo-acoustic blues. His fingers danced over the guitar strings, coupled with
sharply accented slide modulations, as he made his own such tunes as
Robert Johnson's ''Hellhound on My Trail'' and Elmore James's ''Dust My
Broom.'' He finished many songs with Tuvan bass quavers that had the walls
rattling.
Pena, who grew up in Harwich and now lives in San Francisco,
demonstrated the five styles of Tuvan singing before taking a set break.
He returned with a band led by local keyboardist Bruce Katz and guitarist
Chris Brown. Although they were clearly unrehearsed (and had met Pena
only that day), they embarked on a ragged-but-right romp through traditional
blues, as well as ''Jet Airliner'' and ''New Train,'' with its still-relevant line:
''Get on the new train and ride/ Buy our ticket for a brand new season.'' One
can only hope that Pena's next season will earn him the credit he so richly
deserves.
This story ran on page 3 of the Boston Globe on 6/5/2001.
� Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.
[ Se
–--
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
