Peter Karp

Jersey Town

Rose Cottage Records

Peter Karp is a roots-based blues and Americana singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist. He was born in Leonia, New Jersey, and lived in both New Jersey and Alabama during his childhood. Karp writes about personal experiences with detailed observations. In 2003, Karp recorded the album “The Turning Point” on Dennis Gruenling’s Back Bender Records. Mick Taylor, former guitarist for the Rolling Stones, toured with the Roadshow Band featuring Taylor on guitar, Gruenling on harmonica, and Dave Keyes on piano. The concert at The Bottom Line in NYC was recorded for Sirius Satellite Radio.

Karp met Canadian musician Sue Foley while both were performing at Ottawa Bluesfest. They later began recording together, basing the lyrics of their songs on the content of email letters they had exchanged. Their first album, “He Said, She Said,” was released on Blind Pig Records in 2010, and the album reached the top ten on the Billboard Blues Album chart. Their second release, “Beyond The Crossroads,” came out two years later.

Ten tracks from the 2003 Bottom Line recording were released in 2016 as the album “The Arson’s Match.” The title track could be used as a soundtrack to the television show “Chicago Fire.” Profits from the album were donated to the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation in memory of Karp’s late wife, Mary Lou Bonney Karp.

It is always tough for a player to break through to a wider commercial audience, and Peter Karp is at the top of that list. He can be categorized as Americana but with a distinctive blues thread. “Jersey Town” is a gritty, fierce homage to the state where Karp honed his storytelling skills and aggressive guitar chops. While Springsteen has Asbury Park, it was the grayness, grit, din, and relentless rush-hour traffic, amidst cold and crumbling rusted steel bridges and dark overpasses, billowing refineries, and post-apocalyptic swamplands, at the last chance and final stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, that Peter Karp was born. This is Karp’s thirteenth album.

Karp on vocal and guitar opens with “Mojo Jam,” including Gruenling on harmonica, Niles Terrat on bass, and Mike Catapano on drums, as Karp sings “I’m running with my mentors to get my mojo back.”

On the R&B-styled “Baby Hold Tight,” with great organ from Karp, he chimes “Baby hold tight when those wicked winds blow, don’t you ever let go. When you fall off track, when what goes round comes back, If you believe in the promise of love, there’s nothing in this world you can’t rise above. If you hold tight, It’ll be alright, happiness is so hard to find, when your living inside your mind. A little gratitude and honesty, and you’ll find what you need, to set your world free. Baby hold tight.”

The rollicking “House Full Of Love” features Karp with some great slide guitar as he chants “There’s a fallen house on the hillside, boarded up in Englewood. Once stood a house full of love, is now a dark and empty shell of wood. The pipes they’re all rusted. Paint’s chipped down to the wood. It’s too late to fix what’s broken even if I could. The clock on the kitchen wall, hands ain’t moved in the year. It’s still as death in this old house. I believe I belong in here. Ghostly shadows in the hallways, I hear them calling out my name. They got all good reasons to ask why, and no one but me to blame.”

On the tender ballad “That Smile,” credited as co-written with Mary Lou Bonney, Karp is featured on vocals, guitar, and keyboards, with Sue Foley on guitar, Terrat on bass, and Catapano on drums, as Karp wails “You take me high, you take me low. You take me everywhere you go. So take me there I want to go. Just take me there I’m in your flow. So take me there I want to go. To see that smile is worth a hundred days of sadness. To see that smile is worth a hundred days of fear. To see that smile makes love the only thing. To see that smile is what makes this old boy sing. And it seems like this cool blue world’s just a little too cool to care.”

The Dylan-sounding “The Man I Used To Be” features Karp as he cries out “Splintered hinges on the door, broken guitars on the floor. Empty bottles line the table. I’d get up to go if I was able. I feel blue as the sky and as old as the sea. No matter how much I drink tonight, it’s empty inside of me. And they said there’s someone drifting around in the dark of this old town. They say that from behind he walks like me. Here comes another headlight down that old road tonight, throwing the long shadow of the man I used to be. Once I had a woman lots of money too. I could shake them down and give them hell like I like to do. But like the famous comet, bad luck come round again. Now I’m staring at my reflection in the label of my best friend.”

On “Faith,” Karp bursts “I was walking down the road. I was carrying a heavy load. Then I saw hope up in the blue. That’s what faith can do. In the cold of the night I felt the warmth of a guiding light. While I was lost, I had a clue. That’s what faith can do. The road of life is paved with strife, it’s just a hole right through your soul. Through the minutes we count the days, for an explanation of those mysterious ways. But forget all that and clap your hands. Raise up your voices up across the land. Walk the line and you’ll get thru. That’s what faith can do,” with Maximillian Liebman on bass and four background vocalists. This song should be covered by numerous others.

The rockin’ and rollin’ “Tooth And Nail” includes Karp on slide guitar and vocal, Rick Vito on second guitar, and the great rhythm section of Terrat and Catapano, as Karp groans “Woke up this morning. Felt as deserted as a smoldering mattress on a barren train track. ‘Why are you feeling lonely, baby?,’ she had to know, ‘Cause I’m nuts’ I shot back. My former best friend used to while away the hours moaning how this life was like spending time in jail. But I wouldn’t address it. I wouldn’t think about it. I just kept on living, fighting tooth and nail. It was late in the spring of his 33rd year he first spoke of love but was full of dread. I’ve been hypnotized by owls while standing pat. My heart’s as tight as the jaw of an acrobat.”

On another rocker, the topical “Fate Is A Train,” Karp plays some ferocious piano, with Karp on guitar and piano, Dave Keyes on accordion, Doug Howard on bass, and Gram Hopkins on drums, as Karp moans “Fate is a train that you can’t stop. It’ll take you to the bottom or to the top. Get out of the way or all aboard you’ll hop. Fate is a train you can’t stop. Well once I had a woman in my window she flew. She put blood in my heart and gave me love anew. I knew she was the devil right from the start. She left me cold and never bid me I do. Fate is a train you can’t stop…In a northern Minnesota mill city town, the cops took an innocent black man down. That night the city burned and through the smoke and rain was the ghostly sound of a distant train. Fate is a train you can’t stop. It’s either bound for glory or your final stop. Get out of the way or all aboard you’ll hop. Fate is a train you can’t stop.”

“This Road” is an atmospheric ode featuring Karp on guitar and vocal, Rick Vito on slide guitar, Sue Foley on bass, Jim Eingher on organ, and Catapano on drums, as Karp belts “This road it winds and turns. This road is cool but it burns. This road will change your game. This road is more of the same. Over the rise or down in the dip. Stop talkin when you head trip. All you need is one little slip for you tires to get caught in the rumble strip. Don’t play it all when you place a bet. Don’t turn away from love without regret. Don’t say you could when you couldn’t get. Always keep a swagger in your step. This road you long to roam. This road will rust your chrome. This road that you depend. This road comes to an end. A little tremble on your lip as you open up the throttle to let her rip. But man you lose it all when you lose your grip and your tire gets caught in that rumble strip.”

On another rocker, “What Has Happened Here?,” with Karp on guitar and vocal and the rhythm section of Terrat and Catapano, Karp asks “Why are you looking at me? Can’t you see what has happened here? She brought another man home. Now they’re lying on the floor. What has happened here? One day the world is your best friend. One day it all comes to an end. What has happened here?”

On the closer, “Without You,” with special guests John Ginty and Mike Johnson, Karp howls “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know how I’m going to get through. Now I’m all alone, I’ve run out of room. This time I think I’ve gone too far. I think I’m doomed. I don’t have a life without you. Passed up on my friends. All of my crew. Gave me the keys to my place. You know the passwords too. I changed the styles I wear. I cut off my hair. When you talked I listened hard as if I cared…Now I don’t have a life without you. Can’t recognize myself what I say or do. I gave up everything I knew. Now I don’t have a life without you.” Karp sings with experienced guitar chops.

Peter Karp is a storyteller who is also an assertive singer, a spellbinding performer, and a searing slide guitarist with significant keyboard skills. “Jersey Town” is a gritty, fierce homage to the state where he honed his storytelling skills and aggressive guitar chops. Listen to his original songs and stories about the people he played for, real and imagined.

Richard Ludmerer