Tag Archives: Island
Rough Edges for a Smooth Acoustic Guitarist
Peter Neri is a storyteller. He tells his tales with his acoustic guitar.
He’s an impressionist. His music evokes emotions and thoughts that are indicated by the mood of each of his solo guitar pieces. The mood is tied to the titles of each of the nine tracks on Neri’s latest album release Rough Edges, his first since 2002.
On Rough Edges, Neri takes the listener on short journeys through places that conjure every thing from a drippy faucet to the expanse of a cruise down the Amazon to a hot rod running on moonshine that is probably running moonshine in the dark hills and valleys of West Virginia. It’s achieved by virtuoso performances that put all of Neri’s talents on display from single string, partial chording and finger-style to Neri’s own self-described slam-punk finger-style.
He continually shows his adeptness at establishing a main theme and then interjecting adjacent passages that enhance the piece and carry the listener to the further reaches of his imagination.
Neri says he is more interested in “capturing the energy needed to express the nature of the song rather than trying for technically pristine takes.” Don’t worry there is abundant technique on display and the emotionally charged performances never sacrifice virtuoso ability for spontaneity. It’s all here.
The title track isn’t exactly chicken pickin’ but more like chicken pluckin’, as Neri describes it. The pluckin’ moves the tune along at a nice pace as you picture yourself strutting in the barnyard. He then segues to a delicate reverie that suspends time before coming back to the theme. Neri slips in an alternative playing of the main theme and another quiet diversion before bringing the tune to an end. All in 2:07.
The Sad, Sad Demise of the Underwood 5 refers to the long-gone and lamented typewriter. Neri uses the sound effect of the mechanical typewriter in the intro (and outro) of the track and then sets a hurried yet even tempo as he plays through the short, packed sections of this concise composition.
Perhaps the most elegant and lovely melody, adorned with jungle sound effects, is Journey up the Amazon, during which you can easily envision lightly gliding down the expansive river, taking in its myriad delights and majestic dark shadings. The aforementioned track with the leaky faucet, Faucet Still Dripping, moves at the pace of a plip-plop, drip-drop of that stubborn fixture and Celtic Vision lets you imagine dancers running through their steps to a lilting Irish-flavored melody.
The Question?, with its Latin leanings, and The Answer!, finger-picking balladry, seem perfectly fitted for two parts of a whole but each stands on its own as an individual statement, and Sneaky Pete illustrates Neri’s penchant for interjecting various quiet passages to his main themes.
The CD ends with Moonshine in the Gas Tank, a high powered slide guitar workout that envelops the listener in blues-oriented phrases and an adeptly executed country blues-rock feel.
In all, Neri returns with another volume of impressionist musical stories, along with previous releases Night Visions and Dreaming of Home, that carry you along on another glorious trip through the workings of a singular talent.
It’s available on CD at CDBaby or www.peterneriguitar.com/contact. Streaming versions of the album are on CDBaby, Spotify, Apple iTunes, Amazon, Deezer and many others streaming services.
Peter hosts a radio program, One Guitar, on WFVR 96.5 FM from Royalton, Vermont, where you can stream it (https://www.royaltonradio.org/) Tuesdays at 2 p.m. He spins some of the world’s best solo acoustic guitar music. The show will also begin airing on Blues and Roots radio (https://www.bluesandrootsradio.com/homepage) on Tuesday, July 30 at 8 p.m.
N.O.S. Back In Time
N.O.S. Back In Time is my latest album, available on all streaming services, CDBaby, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and many others. It’s a collection of songs I’ve written and sung lead on (save one) with several groups I’ve played with and solo. Tracks included were recorded with the groups Napi Browne, Island and Pulse. There are two solo tracks on which I play everything (except for Drum Drops, remember those) and a Napi Browne rehearsal tape, which although is a cut below the rest in sound quality is a smokin’ track with a live feel. Recorded with a JVC Binaural cassette deck, with no reverb or delay, the quality is actually quite good.
The track I don’t sing lead on is from my first album with the band Pulse, Another Woman, which is sung by the great Carl Donnell (Augusto). Another Woman is one of the first songs I had written for the band and was recorded at Syncron Sound in Wallingford, CT, now Trod Nossel. The Napi Browne tapes come from two sessions, one in Woodstock at Bearsville Studios, and one in Bridgeport at Paul Leka’s studio. One Napi track was recorded in a home studio. The Island material was recorded at the now defunct studio Blue Rock in Soho, New York City.
A more complete list of credits can be found on the album’s page at CDBaby
The best way to find the album on any of the above listed services is by simply searching on my name Paul Rosano. The player below gives a sample of all the tracks.
Island album available at cdbaby, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon
When Pulse was finally finished at the end of 1970, three of the members moved to Manhattan, Beau Segal, Peter Neri and Paul Rosano. We started writing in a slightly different direction from the original blues-oriented Pulse and the quartet that followed. It’s more of a pop direction but there are elements of rock, country rock and blues, jazz and even yes Island music. We recorded these tracks at Blue Rock and Capitol and signed a publishing deal with Sam Gordon through the Grossman-Glotzer management office. Sam set up the studio time and was really quite supportive. He even managed to get Todd Rundgren to come down to Blue Rock and help us produce three of the tunes in this collection. It was a cool ride. You can purchase this album or individual tracks at cdbaby.com
The album is also available on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and all of cdbaby’s digital partners.
Island album released at cdbaby
When Pulse was finally finished at the end of 1970, three of the members moved to Manhattan, Beau Segal, Peter Neri and Paul Rosano. We started writing in a slightly different direction from the original blues-oriented Pulse and the quartet that followed. It’s more of a pop direction but there are elements of rock, country rock and blues, jazz and even yes Island music. We recorded these tracks at Blue Rock and Capitol and signed a publishing deal with Sam Gordon through the Grossman-Glotzer management office. Sam set up the studio time and was really quite supportive. He even managed to get Todd Rundgren to come down to Blue Rock and help us produce three of the tunes in this collection. It was a cool ride. You can purchase this album or individual tracks at CD Baby.
After Pulse, To The Island
When Pulse was finally finished, kaput, Beau, Peter and I moved to New York, rechristened as Island. The idea of the group was to have no limits. We played in a variety of styles. Eclectic would be the best way to describe our repertoire.
It impressed some and probably put others off a bit, but we did garner interest and enough studio time to record an LP’s worth of tunes.
The first track here, Good Time, is one of the first, if not the first, we recorded at the cavernous Capitol Recording Studios. The tune was written by Beau and I sang lead, one of my first. Peter is on lead guitar and harmony and the track was pretty much recorded live in the studio as we didn’t even go back and put a rhythm track on to back Peter’s incendiary solo.
We did a lot of acoustic auditions in the offices of managers, promoters, agents and producers in New York and we almost invariably opened up with Good Time and it almost always generated interest in the listeners. An attention-grabber.
It can only be described as power country-rock, a territory we were just delving into.
The second track, Everybody’s Jumpin’, is one of my compositions and was recorded at Blue Rock in Soho with Todd Rundgren engineering as he had on a previously
posted track Where Am I Going? This is what I mean by eclectic. The song was inspired by one of my favorite vocalists at the time. I was trying to sing something in a lower register as most everything I did at that point was either high harmonies or leads in a high register. It doesn’t sound anything like the vocalist I had in mind. The music track is totally other than what inspired it.
We always envisioned the background vocals as horn parts, and perhaps we would have added those on a master, but it kind of works this way as well with three-part harmony. Barry Flast, later of Poco, lends a hand on the keys and as you can hear we gave him pretty much free reign.
All set up by Sam Gordon (RIP) the publisher who worked for Albert Grossman and Benet Glotzer. The SoundCloud photo includes Harvey, although he wasn’t with us by this time.
Island: Where Am I Going?
Island was a trio formed after the final breakup of Pulse, a Connecticut rock group of the late 1960s with a self-titled album on Poison Ring.
Before moving on to Island, though, a little background on the second version of Pulse, a four-piece group, which had changed the direction of the original six-piece band from almost strictly blues-rock to other styles, including country blues, country rock and pop, but still a hard-driving unit.
In the spring of 1970 after the departure of lead singer Carl Donnell from the original six-piece, a variety of lineups were tried until it was settled on Peter Neri, lead guitar and vocals, Paul Rosano, bass and vocals, and Beau Segal, drums and backup vocals, all staying on and the addition of Harvey Thurott, a second lead guitarist and singer/songwriter joining the band.
The group lasted until December, having parted ways with Doc Cavalier and Syncron Studios, the going was tough in Connecticut. Harvey left the band, and Peter, Paul and Beau moved into New York to try to land a record deal.
In New York, the band went even more in a singer/songwriter, pop-rock direction. We had virtually nothing except our equipment when we moved in and a ton of song ideas. We rehearsed in a loft in the mid-20s on the West side between Fifth and Sixth Avenues that Peter and Beau rented and lived in and literally auditioned in the offices of a number of prominent management agencies, including Michael Jeffries, who managed McKendree Spring, Albert Grossman-Benet Glotzer, who represented a plethora of artists such as Dylan, Todd Rundgren, The Band and many others, and even Sid Bernstein, who wanted to set up a showcase for us in the Village.
We settled on doing business mainly with Grossman-Glotzer and in particular Sam Gordon who ran their publishing arm. He promptly signed us to a publishing deal and set up all kinds of studio time.
By the way, the photo above is of the second Pulse with Harvey since I have virtually nothing from the Island era. So 3/4 of the photo is Island.
We recorded most of our tunes at the old Capitol Studios in midtown, which was a cavernous room used for orchestras and musical comedy soundtrack recordings mostly, but the song here was done at Blue Rock in the Village, which is no longer around. A nice studio though. There are some photos of it in the video as well as one of Capitol.
As an added touch to this session, Sam Gordon got Todd Rundgren to come down and help engineer/produce it as a favor. We had produced the sessions at Capitol ourselves. The Blue Rock session is undoubtedly the best sounding of all the Island recordings. Rundgren had just released Something/Anything? and we would have loved to have him as our producer but he was being courted by some heavy hitters such as the New York Dolls and Grand Funk Railroad, both of whom seemingly gave him big paydays. Todd was quiet that afternoon but very easy to get along with and did a masterful job for us.
One thing I recall other than the session itself was that we literally ran into or rather walked into and met Astrud Gilberto, the Brazilian singer, who was checking the studio out for a possible location for her next album. Charming and quite beautiful.
Where Am I Going? was the first track we recorded that day and we were all quite pleased with it, still am. We got a particularly good drum sound on the track for Beau’s semi-busy but appropriate parts and everything worked out as planned from the vocals — I sang lead, Peter harmony — to Peter’s guitar parts and a piano part added by Barry Flast, whom we had met at Gordon’s Publishing offices.
The song followed our trend of writing and playing in a pop style. I recall getting the initial idea for it while walking around the city, notably the intro vocal and a piano playing straight fours. I used to love walking around New York on my own and often would trek from Chelsea, where I lived, to the East Village and back, with melodies and chord changes flying through my head, a great way to come up with musical ideas
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