Peter Mulvey – 6/28

Peter Mulvey has been a songwriter, road-dog, raconteur, and almost-poet since before he can remember. Raised working-class Catholic on the Northwest side of Milwaukee, he took a semester in Ireland and immediately began cutting classes to busk on Grafton Street in Dublin and hitchhike through the country, finding whatever gigs he could. Back stateside, he spent a couple years gigging in the Midwest before lighting out for Boston, where he returned to busking (this time in the subway) and coffeehouses. Small shows led to larger shows, which eventually led to regional and then national and international touring. The wheels have not stopped since.

 

Twenty albums, one illustrated book, thousands of live performances, a TEDx talk, a decades-long association with the National Youth Science Camp, opening tours and gigs for luminaries such as Ani DiFranco, Greg Brown, Emmylou Harris, and Chuck Prophet, appearances on NPR, an annual autumn tour by bicycle, emceeing festivals, hosting his own Lamplighter Sessions for years in Boston and in Wisconsin… he has built his life’s work on collaboration, on an instinct for the eclectic and the vital.

 

With his eighteenth record, “There Is Another World”, Mulvey delves into the winter of things. Divorce and death, loss and renewal are all present in a collection of songs that range from terse, haiku-like intensity to warm, evocative poetry. And the poets are littered throughout the record; references to Naomi Shihab Nye, Lorine Niedecker, Ted Kooser, Jim Harrison, Mary Oliver, Rilke, Yeats, and Beckett nestle alongside his musical influences of Greg Brown, Anais Mitchell, and Paul Simon.