Episode 8: Dave Perkins, Guitarist with Jerry Jeff Walker, Carole King and Guy Clark

Dave Perkins is an artist whose musical journey crisscrosses the map of American music. Perkins’ work as a guitarist includes playing bluegrass and swing with fiddle-great Vassar Clements, Texas renegade-country with Jerry Jeff Walker, singer-songwriter pop with Carole King, Americana with Guy Clark, alternative rock with Chagall Guevara, blues and jazz with violinist Papa John Creach, reggae with Mystic Meditations, and industrial hard-core with Passafist.   Then, there were the occasional opportunities—seemingly from out of the blue—such as accompanying Ray Charles on his “3/4 Time” video.  Pistol City Holiness (2009), Perkins’ contemporary homage to the blues received much praise in the press and online.  So too did his soundtrack for the independent feature film Deadline (2012).  With Fugitive Colors (2017), Perkins offers an eclectic collection of songs that seem to bridge the boundary lines of multiple genres of American music.  Colored by Perkins’ ever-shifting landscape of guitar textures, the collection has been described as “Distinctively its own thing.”  “ . . . will break your heart, lift your spirits, make you dance, and occasionally laugh.”  “Inspired playing, inspired lyrics, distinctive voice—doesn’t sound like anyone else.”