Peter May: Press

Peter May plays traditional blues with Terraplane and original rock 'n' roll with The Rough Band.

Go! See! Do!
Peter May with Terraplane and The Rough Band

When: 7-10 p.m. Saturday
Where: Summer on Trade, Sixth and Trade streets, Winston-Salem

Etc.: Every Tuesday, hear May with pal Jimmy Ballew on keyboard at Marshall Street Smokehouse, 924 S. Marshall St., Winston-Salem.

I first met Peter May about 16 years ago. I was busy maintaining a marriage, raising two kids and working to supplement the household income. So was he. But unlike May, I was not rocking out.

In one of May's recent e-mails he sends to fans on his mailing list, he mentioned that he and his wife Susan had just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. Peter and Susan May are my heroes. For 20 years, they managed to sustain themselves as a couple, raise four beautiful daughters and yet maintain their identities.

The couple met as teenagers: Peter was 16, Susan was 14. Peter knew Susan was special when he learned she liked Eric Clapton and knew who the Ramones were. It wasn't long before Peter and Susan threatened to go to Rock Hill to get married, but they waited until Susan was 18 and graduated high school. They've been together ever since.

May attributes their longevity to the fact that they allow each other to do their own thing. "I play music. Susan has her friends that she likes to do things with. But we also like doing things together." Whenever they started getting too far apart, they'd come back together and spend time with each other.

Peter has been playing guitar since the age of 10 when he "made noise like it was a toy" on his brother's guitar. He passed through various bands in high school and after, including The Mood, The Grip, The Creeping Gizzroids and Worried Sick with Brian Sides (guitar), Neil Dewan (bass), Mike Kennedy (drums) and Mike Wilcox (vocals). It was a Southern-fried rock 'n' roll experience to hear them live. As the music propelled people to dance, Sides would yell, "Yes, you can still dance to rock 'n' roll!"

When Worried Sick broke up, it broke May's heart. He resumed playing classical guitar, which he studied in college, and soon moved over to the blues. He was attracted to the techniques involved in playing the blues. It remains the "only kind of music I stopped to try and learn," he says. He studied at a couple of summer seminars in Connecticut and afterward with Paul Rishell in Cambridge.

The blues have a clarity of language that appeals to May. And the songs tell stories that most people relate to. But mostly, May was attracted to the blues because he could play them by himself. He played solo for a couple years until he and Mike Wesolowski planned to form a duo -- May on guitar, Wesolowski on harmonica. One time, Bobby Kelly sat in on one of their practices with his upright bass, thus forming the traditional blues band Terraplane.

About that time, The Rough Band also formed. Playing original rock 'n' roll, the band consisted of May and Sam Moss (guitar), Henry Heidtmann (bass), Jay Johnson (drums), Rick Mathey (pedal steel) and Brent Buckner (harmonica).

I met May during the Worried Sick era. I thought he was a rock star, and so I was incredibly shy about talking to him. Granted, I was tremendously naive, but May's stage presence was huge. And his guitar skills were mad.

I met Susan during this time. Her beauty and confidence emanated on the dance floor, where she would be front and center.

Peter and Susan's four daughters -- Stella, 17; Emma, 16; Grace, 13; and Rachel, 10 -- radiate with intelligence, creativity and love. That's a sure sign of Peter and Susan's exceptional parenting skills. The fact that they have done such an amazing job with these girls, while staying married for 20 years and pursuing their own talents and interests, makes them my heroes even more so today than 16 years ago.

North Carolina can take pride in homeboys Peter May & Terraplane. On Straight Drive (self-release), they bring to life a batch of Delta blues from William Harris (a scorching “Bullfrog Blues”), Sleepy John Estes (Diving Duck Blues), Charley Patton, Blind Boy Fuller, and more. It sounds in-the-moment and unfussed over – just great players performing great songs. May’s guitar playing is transcendent. Not to be missed.

Peter May & Terraplane, ``Straight Drive.'' Independent release. **** Raw. That's the way you can describe Peter May's second blues-related release, ``Straight Drive.'' May's bassist, Bobby Kelly, admits he went ``a bit crazy.'' He mixed their 11-song CD using cheap analog gear to come up with a recording that sounds as gritty and authentic as a Mississippi juke joint. May will roll out ``Straight Drive'' in a series of CD release parties next week: May 14, Ham's on Friendly Avenue; May 17, Summer on Trade in downtown Winston-Salem; and May 18, Red Lion Blues and Jazz Club in High Point. He'll introduce a CD that's not as raucous as his first blues-related release, ``Black Coffee Blues,'' which May recorded with his electric band, the Rough Band. For ``Straight Drive,'' May brought in his acoustic group, Terraplane - Kelly on bass and Mike Wesolowski on harmonica - to capture a recording that's back-porch subdued. May picks his National guitar like some jazz-cat drummer as Wesolowski's harp dances around May's playing and Kelly holds down the bottom with an acoustic bass. May recorded tunes from Blind Boy Fuller, the Rev. Gary Davis and May's mentor, Charley Patton, and cut them live on a 16-track digital recorder in his living room. The one omission? Engineer John Pfiffner edited out his yelling to May's four girls - ages 7 to 14 - camped out in the next room during one take. ``Girls, sssh!'' Pfiffner said. Other than that, everything is all here.

TRIAD BLUESMAN'S NEW TRIO GOES STRAIGHT TO THE HEART IT'S REAL Publication: Winston-Salem Journal Byline: Ed Bumgardner, JOURNAL ARTS REPORTER Date: Friday, May 16, 2003 Edition: METRO Section: Features Column: Spins Peter May & Terraplane, Straight Drive, This Collection Records. * * * * (out of four). Peter May has become a fixture in the Triad blues scene, the local equivalent of a Mississippi Delta bluesman, with all the baggage that accompanies that description. May is a bluesman to the depths of his soul, a true student and disciple of the form. But his blues come in many different shades. There's his more eclectic and electric side of blues heard with his Rough Band. There are May's solo shows, in which his acoustic performances of 60-year-old blues songs boast a haunted authenticity that, though firmly devout, still manages to put his stamp on every song. And there is his work with Terraplane, the trio he formed with acoustic bassist Bobby Kelly and the ubiquitous blues-harmonica player Mike "Weso" Wesolowski. Straight Drive is May's first recording with Terraplane, and his second disc devoted to blues music (the excellent Black Coffee Blues was his blues debut). Black Coffee Blues mixed traditional songs with May's own hard- scrabble work. By comparison, Straight Drive, produced by John Pfiffner and recorded in May's living room, finds May and band interpreting tunes by such revered bluesmen from the 1920s and '30s as Rev. Gary Davis, Sleepy John Estes, Tommy McClennan and Charlie Patton, probably the single greatest influence on May (as well as a wealth of other bluesmen). Few of these songs were ever done with a band - or if they were, they were drastically taken away from their original raw sound. Not so on Straight Drive. May's interpretation of "Banks of the River," an acoustic spiritual by Davis, captures the immediacy of the to-the-bone spirituality of the original, even as Wesolowski's harmonica shadings add fresh dimension to an otherwise straightforward reading. Kelly's bass playing throughout is a pleasure, a portrait of economical and unobtrusive playing that helps propel up-tempo juke blues without weighing it down. May remains in fine fettle, playing acoustic guitar and mandolin with the authority and skill that comes from a true understanding of not only the Delta form but also of the life and mythology that informs the music. He is a naturally great singer, experience and ease taking the place of imitation; where lesser blues singers struggle to emulate the sound of a 70-year-old black bluesman, May does so without effort. To that end, Terraplane's performances of such songs as "Diving Duck Blues," the stirring "I Shall Not Be Moved" (recorded with Logie Meachum), "Shake 'Em On Down" and "Step It Up and Go" - will stand with, if not eclipse, any recording other than the originals. Straight Drive was recorded in a manner that sounds like it was captured under a full moon in a Mississippi juke in full swing. As such, it adds to an amazing package of unpretentious and darn-near perfect country blues that honors the root, even as it inches toward a fresh route or two.

PETER MAY & TERRAPLANE CD: THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT By Bill Moore "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, 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," an accomplished, Stonesy array of thoughtful songs; but 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. "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 have this feeling that the blues is a way of speaking to God," explains May, rolling a home-made cigarette. 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. But soon experienced musicians were asking to back him up. The Rough Band, including guitarist Sam Moss and a raft of Winston-Salem musical luminaries, sprang up playing mostly 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. Then the band Terraplane-the name alludes to a raunchy 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 mainly 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. The CD will be released this *Wednesday in Greensboro, Saturday in Winston-Salem, and Sunday in High Point. May hopes to make another blues CD with The Rough Band soon--and another Terraplane CD, with mostly gospel songs, when he can. He's 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."

Bluesman broadens spectrum
Jennie Thompson, Special to Go Triad
(Thursday, March 16, 2006 1:00 am)

Sometimes you have to try something new. Bluesman Peter May understands this.

Rather than continuing his career in a nonstop acoustic-blues format, May was willing to plow forward into other musical genres. That meant releasing his inner rock 'n' roll child at a Katrina benefit last year at the Blind Tiger in Greensboro.

"I wanted to get into a rock 'n' roll club," said May of Winston-Salem. "I didn't want to do my acoustic thing; I wanted to do my ... rock 'n' roll thing.

"It's about being different or distinctive."

Peter May says he will “try just about anything that makes noise.”

Ultimately, this meant attempting various modes of sound, something that May is not a stranger to. Or so suggest his musical influences, a rocky soundscape of Randy Newman,

Tom Waits, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Aerosmith ("before they were clean," May adds).

And his musical talents are just as varied. May continues to fiddle with instruments of every sort: bass, guitar, piano, drums. Still, he says he doesn't play any of them well enough to call himself a true piano player or drummer. "But I will try just about anything that makes noise." he said.

Blind Tiger patrons will get a taste of some of May's noise at 10 p.m. March 23 when he takes the stage as Peter May and The Rough Band. For right now, May is leaving the other instruments up to the rest of The Rough Band. Jay Johnson handles the drums, Henry Heidtmann the bass, Sam Moss the guitar and, last but not least, Rick Nathy the pedal steel.

Perhaps this is where May draws the line between the acoustic blues side of himself and the electric experimentalist.

May comes from a rich and unusual childhood. The son of a Moravian minister, May took a pilgrimage to visit the graves of Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson. When he performs, he draws his connection to the audience from what he learned through his spiritual upbringing.

"When you play in a church, people listen or participate, and I guess I set out with those assumptions in my head," May said. "Sometimes in a bar, you're just background noise, and sometimes you get used to it, and that's OK. I look for something that's going to move somebody, not in a particularly religious way but in an emotional way."

The blues, however, is not always so raw. Its refined edges can be witnessed in the subtle "ambiguities" of its lyrics, May said.

"The blues has influenced my songwriting through its language," he said. "I'll figure out (the musicians) mean something other than what I thought they meant. That's interesting."

This direct relationship with language could be explained by May's English-major background. May chose literature over music while at UNCG because it simplified life for him at the time. He had enrolled as a music major, but he decided it was time to go. "They didn't really kick me out, but I quit, and the English degree was the quickest way through."

May's desire to make movements that are less complicated echoes itself in the blues he loves, as well.

"Charlie Patton is kind of my hero. He was the first blues star in Mississippi. ... (A song like his) can tell a story and use real simple language."

Essentially, that clarity, filtered throughout generations, is all we really need.


Jennie Thompson hosts "Double Dose" from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday on WUAG 103.1 FM. She also contributes to the music blog "Rock Static" (www.rockstatic.blogspot.com). Contact her at jmariathompson@yahoo.com.