Spotlight Album Review: Peter Mulvey "Love is the Only Thing"
A Wisconsin native, Peter Mulvey became a respected member of the fertile Boston music scene in the mid-90’s. Over the past 30 years, he’s followed his own path, with 19 albums, full of his well-crafted songs and occasionally unconventional covers. His latest, Love Is the Only Thing, may be his best, for the quality of the writing, the strength of the arrangements, and depth of feeling in the vocals.
To be correct, the album is billed as Peter Mulvey & SistaStrings. Monique and Chauntee Ross are SistaStrings, classically trained musicians (Monique on cello and Chauntee on violin) who were raised in Milwaukee (Peter’s hometown), but now live in Nashville. They developed a kinship with Peter as they collaborated on the late 2020 release, Live at Café Carpe. By the time they recorded Love Is the Only Thing (also at Café Carpe), their chemistry had continued to grow. The result is a truly organic album, with just Peter, SistaStrings and percussionist Nathan Kilen in the studio.
The album opens with the traditional song, “Shenandoah,” Peter’s spare acoustic guitar underscored by quiet strings at a slow tempo. Peter describes it as “deeply rooted in the American soul”; imbued with loss and regret, it sets the stage for songs, both personal and political, that grew out of the pandemic. At the same time, as the title implies, the album is full of love: songs for his wife, as expressed in “Soft Animal” and “February Too,” where the melody is swept up in the strings, and the prospect of parenthood in “Five Hundred Days.” You feel the sense of liberation as Covid begins to abate in “Early Summer of ‘21”: the chance to hug again and take a trip into the city (complete with a shout out to McSorley’s Pub).
The personal is laced with the political in “On the Eve of the Inauguration”: the new father with his child in a car seat, contemplates the world his kid inheriting. There’s a sweetness to the waltz, but it’s undercut by anxiety:
‘Cause on the eve of the inaugural there’s a look
Of pure nervousness on every face that I see
I mean, I know: things rise and things fall, but like
Everyone else I never thought that that applied to you and me
You feel the impact of the pandemic on a son with aging parents living far away, in “See You on the Other Side” a tender song that reminds me of “Falling Slowly” from Once by the Swell Season.
There are comments on the state of the union in “Oh My Dear (the Demagogue)” (a parable about our country), “Old Men Drinking Seagrams” (a glimpse of small-town life), and “You and Everybody Else” (a critique on social media with sizzling strings reminiscent of “Kashmir”). More poignantly, “Pray for Rain,” inspired by the writing of James Baldwin, expresses what Peter describes as “the aching, abiding love and the searing intelligence that are necessary if we are to come to terms with the United States of America.”
An unapologetic activist, Peter tackles Black Lives Matter directly in “Song for Michael Brown,” a heartfelt prayer for compassion for his family, his city, the marchers as well as the cops:
And you and me
And for our friends
And for our families
And for our neighbors one and all
And most especially for the next child
For the next child we know will fall
The album concludes on an upbeat note with the Chuck Prophet cover that provides the album title, “Love Is the Only Thing”:
All you true believers
All you wide receivers
Anyone who calls this world their own
When the war is over
I'll still be your brother
Maybe we can sort the right from the wrong
A full-throated chorus offers hope from the heart, just as James Baldwin, for all his criticism of America, always remained optimistic. John Lennon said, “All you need is love.” Peter Mulvey agrees. Love Is the Only Thing is an album true to our time but likely to resonate for a long time.
photo by Amos Perrine