“Something inside me would like to make my best-ever album,” Peter Perrett said. “Seeing Johnny Cash doing his best work right at the end makes me feel like just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m useless.” Whoa. Serendipity. I’ve been listening to Cash’s final brace this past week, shortly before Perrett’s latest. So great, so understanding of their place in the world, drawing on experience and memory but never allowing age or bitterness to be a barrier to communication. So dignified. So resonant. Cash’s greatest work, no question.
Can the same be said here? The opening song on Peter Perrett’s third solo album and unlooked-for second creative life (2017’s How The West Was Won was his first album in almost 30 years) is called I Wanna Go With Dignity, and it rocks as hard as anything on even The Only Ones’ 1979 classic Even Serpents Shine.
