BELLOWS FALLS — Peter Case has just about done it all.
Case has gone being an early power-punker - he wrote “Hanging on the Telephone,” one of Blondie's biggest hits - to top-40 video tracks, to lovingly compiled tributes to the great acoustic bluesmen, to his path today teaching songwriting and touring solo.
Along the way, he has battled personal and professional challenges, health issues, and transient trends in music to emerge where he is today - one of the great creative individuals of the 21st century.
Case will be making a rare foray east in November, stopping off on Friday, Nov. 18, in Bellows Falls, to inaugurate a series of shows at the Bellows Falls Opera House Lower Theater, presented by Flying Under Radar.
Proceeds will benefit the Friends of the Opera House, a group described on its website as “a community membership organization that fosters and supports high-quality, affordable performances” at the historic theater.
Case left upstate New York in 1974 to travel west to California. Starting as a street singer in San Francisco and Los Angeles, he became an early punk-rock convert.
His band, The Nerves, opened for the Ramones across the United States in 1977. His next band, the Plimsouls, scored a hit in the '80s with “A Million Miles Away.”
Case's former bands continue to enjoy rediscovery by rock's new generations, but his solo career has proven to be more enduring, earning him accolades and diehard fans, concert organizer Charlie Hunter says.
As a rocker turned acoustic player, Case opened a door through which others have walked ever since 1986 when his self-titled, T-Bone Burnett-produced solo album earned him year-end honors and his first Grammy nod.
“Set to a tribal-folk percussive blend of blues, country and rock 'n' roll, its essences pour through everything he's recorded since,” Hunter writes.
Case's songs are continually revived by other artists (a three-disc set was recorded in tribute to him) and used in contemporary film and television (most recently, on the hit HBO series True Blood).
Over two decades, he's recorded 10 solo albums - from the highly acclaimed and influential The Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar to 2007's Grammy-nominated Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John.
His 2001 Avalon Blues, a tribute to the music of his country blues hero, Mississippi John Hurt, featured contributions by Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and Beck.
With Wig!, his 2011 album, Case has recommitted himself - to life, after a serious heart operation in 2009 - and to his personal brand of rock 'n' soul.
Did Case ever consider giving up for a more sedate post-op life?
“I'm what you'd call 'very extremely overcommitted' at this point,” he said with a laugh.
“Peter Case is a real hero of mine,” Hunter says. “Peter doesn't compromise. His vision of music, its potential to enliven and enrich, is really inspiring.”
Local musicians on stage
The show also includes performances by Ezra Veitch and Josh Maiocco, who Ray Massucco, of Vermont Festivals, LLC, which is associated with the production, describes as “a big part of the local scene.”
“Both are excellent singer/songwriters,” Massucco said.
In addition to his membership in bands like Ninja Monkey, 84 Sheepdog, and Ingrid's Ruse, “Veitch also plays drums and sat in with Fred Eaglesmith one year when the drummer bailed during the tour,” said Massucco, who has organized the annual Roots on the River festival for years.
Maiocco ”opened at the Bellows Falls Opera House on our 'Blues in BF' night for Chris Smither and Sonny Landreth,” Massucco added. ”He has played Roots more often than anyone other than Fred, Roger Marin, and Mary Gauthier.”
The show is also presented in association with WOOL 100.1FM, with help from Popcorn Sutton Productions and MMorgana. Doors open at 7 p.m., with the show at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $18 in advance, with $30 front-row “angel” tickets available online.
(“Generally, there aren't really any 'bad' seats at our venues, but 'Angel' seating more or less guarantees that if anyone is going to be sweated or spittled upon by the performer, that person will be you,” Hunter writes on his website.)
Advance tickets are available at Village Square Booksellers and Fat Franks in Bellows Falls, in Chester at Misty Valley Books, in Brattleboro at Turn It Up!, and online.
For further information, call 802-463-3669 or visit Hunter's website.