Peter May: Bios
Peter May
PETER MAY: THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT
Peter May has become a fixture in the blues scene, the equivalent of a Mississippi Delta bluesman, with all the baggage that accompanies that description.
- Ed Bumgardner
“It felt like the roof was going to blow off - it made you feel like you were floating - it took you somewhere else,” blues artist Peter May explained recently about his earliest musical experiences at Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem. “I still look for that…to hide in, or to let it wash over you,” he continued during a conversation about his music at his home recording studio near Clemmons. May—who gave up majoring in music for English, when he had trouble with ear training at UNCG-is passionately spiritual about the blues. He has been exploring the complex emotional terrain of human existence, stretched between the dirt of the earth and the purity of the heavens, in live and recorded music for the majority of his 38 years.
As a boy he sang in the Moravian choir and played French horn in the Moravian band on street corners for Easter. His father, the Rev. Henry E. May, Jr. played some guitar-as did May’s brothers. May took up guitar in his teens, and soon he was admiring Led Zeppelin and playing rock ‘n’ roll. In college, he played blues with The Creeping Gizroids, and after graduation he and a bunch of talented Winston-Salem musicians started the rock band Worried Sick, playing around the Piedmont and making CD’s. In 1996 Worried Sick, with May among others on vocals and guitar, came out with its last CD, “It Rained Fire Today,” was an accomplished, Stonesy array of thoughtful songs.
By early 1998 May had transitioned away from the band into an independent career in blues. He had read a biography of the Mississippi legend Skip James and had seen himself-like James the musical son of a minister—in the hard-living religious bluesman’s image. May realized he had to try the blues on his own. He dove in with vigor. “For a while, If it wasn’t blues guitar, it felt like it wasn’t worth listening to,” said May of his transformation, leaning back in the studio control room, sporting a red and white “Worried Sick” T-shirt. He got deeply into the music, playing the guitar the classic way with his fingers, and studying the moving, complex lyrics of Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton. Soon, for May, it was all about blues-and gospel music. “I think that the blues is a way of speaking to God,” explains May. For him, gospel music expresses the human aspiration for a better life—while the blues expresses life here and now, with its imperfections and struggles and prayers. After some serious wood-shedding—and lessons with Boston’s folk blues guru Paul Rishell, courtesy of a Forsyth County Arts council Emerging Artist grant—May started playing solo in clubs and restaurants. These exclusively solo shows continued for two years. May and a band of acoustic blues purists including: Jim McCollum, Ira DeCoven, and Allin Cottrell played at every opportunity in songwriter type circles.
Eventually, May became interested in his electric guitar again. He soon found musicians from Winston-Salem’s upper class interested The Rough Band, including guitarist Sam Moss, bassist Henry Heidtmann, pedal-steel guitarist Rick Nathy and drummer Jay Johnson was formed. The Rough Band began playing locally and focusing on original May and Darrell Blackburn blues songs. May’s 2000 CD “Black Coffee Blues”-an earthy, rocking electric blues romp seasoned with a moving gospel song—used the Rough Band extensively.
The band Peter May & Terraplane-the name alludes to a Robert Johnson song-arose with Winston-Salem’s Mike Wesolowski on harmonica and Greensboro’s Bobby Kelly on upright bass. The focus of Peter May & Terraplane is traditional acoustic blues and gospel, from Charley Patton and Sleepy John Estes to the Reverend Gary Davis, as the newly released CD “Straight Drive” reveals. “Straight Drive”-recorded mostly live in May’s paneled living room late at night, before he built the home studio in his garage with a State of North Carolina Artist Fellowship grant-is a feast of varied tones and emotions, featuring May’s rough, sincere vocals and powerful ‘34 National resonator guitar, along with Wesolowski’s wailing harp and Kelly’s solid bass thump.
May has been reading up on his spiritual southern roots in “The Christ Haunted Landscape: Faith and Doubt in Southern Fiction”-but under the tissue box in the bathroom, near the kitchen in his house, is another book, “The Devil’s Music: A History of the Blues.”
- Bill Moore
"Wasabi" Bobby Kelly - Bass, w/Terraplane
Known to friends, fans and musicians alike as “Wasabi”, Bobby Kelly is
a professional and seasoned musician & engineer best known for his
talents as an acoustic and electric bassist. Bobby has engineered live
sound as well as recorded regional and national acts as diverse as Yes
and Black Flag and as traditional as the mountain sounds of Bill Monroe
and Tony Rice. In addition, Bobby is a founding member of the highly
regarded bands Tornado and Blues World Order. As a sideman Bobby has
worked with Bob Margolin, Hubert Sumlin, Paul Oscher, Nappy Brown,
Johnnie Whitlock, Mel Melton, Skeeter Brandon, Armand & Bluesology and
many more. A well-respected bassist and engineer, Bobby has well over
50 records to his credit.
Mike "Weso" Wesolowski - Harp w/Terraplane
Influenced heavily by Paul Butterfield, James Cotton and Kim Wilson,
‘Wezo” started playing harp in the early 70s. “My first instrument was
guitar, but after a while I looked around and there were all these real
good guitar players out there and I realized I wasn’t one of them”. So
began the quest for the perfect harp tone. Wezo found an inspired
interest in piedmont style country blues and began to collect and
listen to everything he could get his hands on in that genre. In the
early 90’s he played with an acoustic trio called The Ministers of
Sinister and recorded an album on the New Moon label. While with New
Moon, Mike had the opportunity to record with Lightning’ Wells, Highway
61, and Big Boy Henry and later starting a Jump/Swing band called
Blues-A-Matic, with local guitar slinger Bryan Smith. “My love of harp
playing has taken me in lots of different directions. I’ve had the
opportunity to play on other peoples projects which included jazz,
country, and rock. I don’t want people to think that because I’m a harp
player, all I play is blues.” Mike “Wezo” Wesolowski is a Hohner
Harmonica endorsee and plays them exclusively.
Henry Heidtmann - bass w/The Rough Band
Henry Heidtmann, Peter May and the Rough Band's bassist, doesn't have a blues background; it was Long Island school-kid piano and sax; then Beatlemania led him to bass and "everything McCartney played." Later, as a college student, Henry was thinking med-school, only to have those plans "derailed" when he began playing with Faster Faster, a move he credits with sliding him into the "local scene" and eventually places like Atlanta. His return to Winston-Salem saw Henry immerse himself in a variety of musical contexts. He opened a recording studio, Turtle Tapes, with Rough Band drummer Jay Johnson, taping everything from local bands, to Fuller Brush ads, to benefit-projects such as "Rock for ARC", a quasi "We Are The World" project employing much of Winston-Salem's remarkably deep pool of talent. So when asked if he'd join Peter to do the blues thing, Henry thought, "I'll stick it out for six months...that was eight years ago."
Ricky Lee Nathey - Pedal Steel Guitar w/The Rough Band
Purists might wince at the notion of pedal steel guitar in a band drawing from the Delta for influence. But to hear Ricky Lee Nathey's take on a Sleepy John Estes or Muddy Waters tune is to know something's been missing from the blues vocabulary. Having learned guitar from his father, also a lap steel player, Nathey's musical growth bent towards pedal steel, a particulary difficult instrument to master. An accomplished player, Ricky's soloing can be inspired, alternately sounding like a V-2 buzzbomb, arcing to earth, or a glistening, translucent celestial note suspended above the music. But Ricky sees his responsibility to the music as structural. "I think more of chords...organ and horn lines...I try to be a part of the rhythm section." Broadly appreciated as a fine player on an instrument seldom heard on anything not from Nashville, Ricky is a seasoned session player and has played "in a bunch a damn bands," across a wide cross-section of musical styles.
Sam Moss - Guitar w/The Rough Band
Sam Moss has probably done as much as anyone to spread the gospel according to guitar. Sam has been teacher and mentor to countless players. An arbiter of tone and taste, he's owned a succesful guitar shop, been a first-call session player, and a definitive live performer for over thirty-five years. Sam's generosity, chops, and enthusiasm for the six-string statement are legendary. But as articulate and spontaneous as Sam's playing is, Sam has always admonished that players and everything that they do should serve the song, first and last. He dryly lists his influences as "the usual suspects." Sam is currently bending wire for Peter May and the Rough Band as well as The Sams, a project he's pursuing with singer-songwriter K.D. Rouse.
Jay Johnson - Drums w/The Rough Band
Jay Johnson's musical roots run deep and wide. Described as having a graduate degree in rock and roll, Jay has earned credit-hours drumming with such power-pop luminaries as The Right Profile and Chris Stamey. Jay has also done stints as a recording engineer and, with the Rough Band's bassist, Henry Heidtmann, co-owner of Turtle Tapes recording studio. A musician not grounded in the blues, Jay's versatility, musical sense and taste make him a significant contributor to the Rough Band's unique adaptation of the blues idiom. Jay cites the legendary Al Jackson as a major influence on his approach to drums. "I just try to stay out of the way...let people know where the backbeat is...and keep a bottom going for the guys up front." That less-is-more philosophy, shared by close, long-time friend and rhythm section co-conspirator Heidtmann, gives Peter May and the Rough Band an intuitive lock-step foundation for the rest of the band's considerable talent to build from.