Album Notes

"When you play in a church, people listen or participate, and I guess I set out with those assumptions in my head," May said. "Sometimes in a bar, you're just background noise, and sometimes you get used to it, and that's OK. I look for something that's going to move somebody, not in a particularly religious way but in an emotional way."

The blues, however, is not always so raw. Its refined edges can be witnessed in the subtle "ambiguities" of its lyrics, May said.

"The blues has influenced my songwriting through its language," he said. "I'll figure out (the musicians) mean something other than what I thought they meant. That's interesting."

The Rough Band, including guitarist Sam Moss and a raft of Winston-Salem musical luminaries, sprang up playing mostly original May and Darrell Blackburn blues songs. May's 2000 CD "Black Coffee Blues"-an earthy, rocking electric blues romp seasoned with a moving gospel song--used the Rough Band extensively.

"It's about being different or distinctive."

Peter May says he will “try just about anything that makes noise.”

Ultimately, this meant attempting various modes of sound, something that May is not a stranger to. Or so suggest his musical influences, a rocky soundscape of Randy Newman,

Tom Waits, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Aerosmith ("before they were clean," May adds).

And his musical talents are just as varied. May continues to fiddle with instruments of every sort: bass, guitar, piano, drums. Still, he says he doesn't play any of them well enough to call himself a true piano player or drummer. "But I will try just about anything that makes noise." he said.

For right now, May is leaving the other instruments up to the rest of The Rough Band. Jay Johnson handles the drums, Henry Heidtmann the bass, Sam Moss the guitar and, last but not least, Rick Nathy the pedal steel.

Perhaps this is where May draws the line between the acoustic blues side of himself and the electric experimentalist.

May's desire to make movements that are less complicated echoes itself in the blues he loves, as well.

"Charlie Patton is kind of my hero. He was the first blues star in Mississippi. ... (A song like his) can tell a story and use real simple language."

Essentially, that clarity, filtered throughout generations, is all we really need.