On a recent night at the New York music venue Webster Hall, a white-haired man in his 60s with an acoustic guitar walked gracefully onto the stage, sat on a stool and began to speak. “I’m from Ivory Coast,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I came a long way to America to play music for you – and to tell you my story.”
For the next 45 minutes, he offered slices of it, interspersed with cascading ballads that mix African cadences with strains of American country and folk music sung at a hushed volume. Despite the intimate nature of the performance – not to mention the fact that few in the crowd, who had come to see the headliners, the Walkmen, had any idea who the singer was – the audience remained rapt. Having spent an hour earlier in the evening with the man born Pierre-Evrard Tra, who performs as Peter One, I understood what transfixed them. His story involves tales of economic collapse, political corruption and mass violence in his home country, as well as resourcefulness, focus and courage on his part in coming to America. It’s the kind of positive immigrant story that fulfills the promise to new arrivals the US often only pays lip service to. “I felt fear when I came here,” One said when we spoke backstage. “But I was determined. This was my dream.”
