Review- Peter One: Come Back to Me
What a glorious world we live in that we are graced with this new Peter One album, Come Back to Me. This lovely record, stately and gentle, provides evidence that modern day life is not all sticks and stones and broken bones – there is grace.
It’s astonishing that this album happened at all. It’s One’s second, coming almost 40 years and 5,000 miles after his first.
Photo by Angelina Castillo
Peter One was a star in Ivory Coast in the 1980s. An avid fan of the American country music he heard on the radio, he developed a style that blended country-folk with west African rhythms and sensibilities. He and musical partner Jess Sah Bi released an album in 1985, Our Garden Needs Its Flowers. It was a hit and they were a sensation, filling stadiums and getting radio play. The BBC even used a song from that album, "African Chant," as theme music the day Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
Unrest in Ivory Coast led One to come to the United States in the early 1990s, where he tried to pick up his musical career. But a year later, “I was broke,” he said. He lived in New York and Delaware before settling in Nashville. His music career fizzled, and he settled into a quiet life as a nurse while working on songs on the side.
In 2018, a blog turned record label called Awesome Tapes from Africa (and how awesome is that name?) reissued the album. It garnered some notice and positive reviews, and it began to catch the right ears.
Five years later, this 67-year-old retired nurse is finally making it in music. Backed by a band of Nashville hotshots, he’s opening for Jason Isbell, just made his Grand Ole Opry debut, and his second album drops May 5 from Verve Forecast.
The album is worth the wait. Singing in a high, warm voice in English, French and the African language Guro, One fills Come Back to Me with songs of love and life. Google Translate and two years of high school Latin leave me unable to precisely parse the meanings, but fortunately music is the universal language.
Press materials tell me that album opener “Cherie Vico” is a story about star crossed lovers overcoming their families’ objections. It’s a song his cousin sang acapella. One set it to music and added the only English parts, when background singers, sounding a bit like the vocals in Paul Simon’s Graceland, swoop in with “ahhhh, come back to me.”
Given that the phrase became the album’s title, and because it’s so lovely, it’s tempting to stretch the meaning. Could he be making a reference to his career? Almost four decades after his professional music career was separated from him, this song’s lament rings true: Come back to me.
“Kavudu” is a stately song, with various drums and fingersnaps quietly keeping time, and deep-voiced harmony singers providing counterpoint to One’s higher vocal line.
“Ejie” carries a Carpenters-like melody, and One’s voice soars over the top, with strings joining the party toward the end.
“Staring Into the Blues” is the album’s first curveball. The Robert Cray-like smooth blues jam leads off with smoky, bluesy organ and harmonica atop a funky, burbling bass line. Subtle electric guitar licks and a honking horn section spice the stew.
“Sweet thing, won’t you hear my plea / I’ve waited for hours on this balcony / I’ve been out, out buying roses, writing poems for you / Oh, I couldn’t make it without you / I’m staring into the blues.”
“Sweet Rainbow” and “On My Own” are the yin and yang of love. The former is a sweet and simple ode to a lover: “Wonderful baby, I love you so.” The latter is the post-breakup flip side: “It will take time to go through my pain / It will take time for me to love again / It’ll take time to go through my pain / It’ll take for me to trust again.”
One saves the best for last. “Birds Go Die Out of Sight” is a stunner. A plucked acoustic guitar, bass and brushed drums set a stately marching beat as harmonica and pedal steel embellish the proceedings. It tells a true tale, when One pleaded with a fellow immigrant from Ivory Coast not to return to their homeland – it was too dangerous.
Allison Russell provides a beautiful duet vocal, but One’s voice tells the tale and provides the tension. Too kind to scream, too polite to beg, he sounds like he’s trying to restrain himself as he pleads.
“Hold your horses, brother / Don't you go, don't you go, can't you see? / Things have changed and you have changed.”
One’s friend did return home. Not long after, his children no longer had a father.
“Adele and Grace are alone / Ain't you sad / Ain't you sad / Ain't you sad, what you see?”
I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that kindly Peter One was a great nurse. He’s a pretty great musician too.
Find out more about Peter One at the links below: