Description
Chase the Buffalo is the fourth studio album the American singer, songwriter, and guitarist Pierce Pettis, released in July 1993 as his third and final effort for the Windham Hill imprint High Street Records. The album was recorded by Jim Wirt, Joe Schiff, Keith Wechsler, and David Hackbarth at 4th Street Recording in Santa Monica, Stagg Street Studio in Los Angeles and The Rockett Plant in Burbank, California; with David Miner producing. (Miner is a veteran musician who goes all the way back to being a founding member of Great Society, a mid-’60s psychedelic rock band featuring Grace Slick.) Mixed by Jim Scott.
The recording features a stellar cast of musicians like Booker T. Jones on Hammond B-3 organ, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos fame playing various instruments like electric 12-string guitar, 8-string Peruvian thingamajig, and accordion, John Jorgenson on electric guitar and mandolin, David Miner on upright bass, Jim Keltner on drums, and Efrain Toro on percussion. Backing vocals provided by Pam Dwinell Miner.
Recently I had the good fortune to hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu preach. His was a sermon of light and life, freedom and love, justice and mercy, boldness and depth. I kept catching myself crying, it was news I found somehow too good to be true. You can’t trust some preachers, that’s what I say.
Recently, I’ve been giving this third album from Pierce Pettis a listen. It’s full of rich, melodic folk and acoustic pop, with lyrics that touch the flesh of human existence, that cut to the heart of life’s matters, that connect with the mourning that comes with the territory of caring. I keep welling up with tears. It’s a record carrying news I long to believe is true. You can’t trust some singer/songwriters, that’s what I say.
Of course, one of the ghosts that hovers in the air while you listen to Pettis is Mark Heard, our dear dead dear that produced Pettis last time out. Heard’s «Nod Over Coffee» opens the record, but by the time you’ve listened to «You’re Not There», «Family», «Trying to Stand», which was written for Heard’s memorial, and the rest right on through to «Envelopes of Light», it’s hard to know where the tribute ends. To Pettis’ credit it is sensitive and emotionally compelling, but not sensational dealing with a delicate trust. It values the things that Heard valued.
Pettis’ writing here is deeper, more incisive than on Tinseltown. The title track, along with «No More Sad Songs» struggles meaningfully with what it is that he cannot help but do with his life. When he turns topical, as with «Stickman», which looks into the face of victims of AIDS, and «Lions of the Colosseum» there’s still that connected-ness of emotion that is often missing in the works of lesser artists. The key here is that in this collection of songs there are only a couple that seem superfluous. For the most part, each piece offers a poignant moment with the songwriter, each song works to draw one in to the whole.
Pettis is aided here quite expertly by producer/bassist David Miner and numerous guests (Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo on guitars and vocals, drummers Jim Keltner and David Raven, Booker T. Jones on Hammond organ, and Pam Dwinell Miner and Bob Bennett on backing vocals). As always, it is finally the songs that matter, and these songs do.
Sometimes a loss can make us live more fully, work more meaningfully, speak more honestly, love more completely. It’s made more of Pierce Pettis and his music, and it makes Chase the Buffalo a record very much worth acquiring. That’s what I say. [Brian Q. Newcomb, Syndicate Magazine, Sept/Oct 1993]
This is Pierce Pettis’ third release on Windham Hill’s High Street Records imprint – a singer/songwriter label that was created just a couple of years ago with Pettis in mind. With his gift for superb lyrics and catchy but not formulaic melodies, “singer/songwriter,” a term born in the 70’s, still applies to Pettis. “Poet” is probably an even better description, as his profound and insightful images touch on the deeper shared experiences of life.
After a superb cover of the late Mark Heard’s «Nod Over Coffee», Pettis launches into one of the album’s best songs, «You’re Not There», with an upbeat arrangement that belies this emotional reflection on the sundering of a relationship. «Trying to Stand in a Fallen World» captures what must be a common theme among us all: “Do you ever feel this way/ Like there is no escape/ And you’re out there all alone/ In a place that’s not your home /Trying to stand in a fallen world.” «Stickman», written from the point of view of an AIDS patient dying in a cold steel hospital bed, is a stirring call for compassion. «Lions of the Colosseum» compares aspects of certain modern day churches and televangelists to the colosseum where Christians who wandered in were eaten (or just rolled for their pocket change). The lyric does however, encourage the true saints to continue “… hiding in the underground/ Blood brothers pass the cup around/ And pay no heed to the roaring sound.”
Like any good poet, there is a strong sense in all of Pettis’ songs that he knows what he is writing about – that his lyrics have come from a deep well of human experience, both of joy and suffering. For Pettis, this comes out of his life in and around southern Appalachian culture, portrayed vividly in songs like «Appalachian Bloodlines».
The album’s production (by David Miner) is good though sparse, highlighting Petti’s guitar and vocals (with expressive backing vocals by Pam Dwinell Miner), and adding little else save bass, percussion, and an occasional touch of harmonica or organ. [Matthew T. Dickerson, CCM, August 1993]
CD tracklist:
01. Nod Over Coffee – 4:35
02. You’re Not There – 4:03
03. Natchez Trace – 4:03
04. Family – 3:17
05. Trying To Stand In A Fallen World – 4:19
06. One Who Got Away – 4:30
07. No More Sad Songs – 5:08
08. Lions Of The Colosseum – 3:22
09. Chase The Buffalo – 4:36
10. Appalachian Bloodlines – 4:11
11. Stickman – 5:57
12. I Will Be Here – 4:04
13. Remembering Gamble – 2:00
14. Envelopes Of Light – 4:17
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by High Street Records.
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