So, for some classy musicianship, Peter Mayer has a voice that melds warmth and feeling, songs that breathe with ambience, you will be blown away by this, as I was.
Written by: gdmonline
ARTIST: Peter Mayer
ALBUM: Green Eyed Radio
LABEL: Pool Party Records
YEAR: 1996
CD REISSUE: Discogs Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA
LINEUP: Peter Mayer – vocals, guitars * Tom Kennedy – bass * Roger Guth – drums * Greg Taylor – harmonica * Jay Oliver – piano, keyboards * Vince Varvel – keyboards, guitar * Jim Mayer – bass
TRACK LISTING: 01 Green Eyed Prelude * 02 All The Tea In China * 03 Shall We Dance * 04 Send Me The Love * 05 In The Meantime * 06 The Onion * 07 Michaelangelo * 08 Under Your Spell * 09 One And One Makes Three * 10 Suzannah * 11 Funny * 12 Blue River * 13 The Green Eyed Radio
WEBLINKS: Site Link
Background
Anyone remember PM? They released an album on Warner Bros in 1988 which is considered to be a soft rock/West Coast classic. PM in fact was based around the very talented Peter Mayer, along with brother Jim and long time pal Roger Guth.
After the unsuccessful affair that was PM the band, the guys managed to get themselves stitched to playing on Jimmy Buffet‘s new album at the time ‘Off To See The Lizard’, courtesy of producer Elliot Scheiner, and from then were part of Buffet’s legendary Coral Reefers backing band. However, in between times Peter has allowed himself the luxury of releasing the odd album from time to time, including this marvellous gem ‘Green Eyed Radio’ from 1996.
The Songs
Now, let me point out that this is not strictly AOR as most reviews are on this site, but the talent of the man concerned, and the class of the material is undeniably great! Peter Mayer’s vocals are smooth, and ‘honey roughened’ if I can put a loose term to it, while the songs are so atmospheric that even the great Alfie Zappacosta by comparison is a distant second.
I always have this CD close by, and it makes for compelling listening. The opening ‘Green Eyed Prelude’ is a gloriously rich acoustic guitar intro, with matching subtle keyboards. ‘All The Tea In China’ is built upon an ingenious shuffle beat courtesy of Roger Guth, and the rest of the song eventually catches up. The result is rather lovely with lyrics and arrangements doing the song justice.
The effortless ‘Shall We Dance’ invokes memories of those PM days, wonderfully understated but compelling nonetheless. ‘Send Me The Love’ is a heartland style ballad based around a simple piano and an accompanying acoustic guitar. Atmospherics abound on ‘Michaelangelo’. I still haven’t worked out the plot of the lyrics on this one. Anyone who knows please be so kind as to let me in on the secret.
The Jimmy Buffet influences kick in on ‘Under Your Spell’ and the very Caribbean flavoured ‘In The Meantime’, while a nautical theme is very much the order of the day on ‘Suzannah’. Then there’s the very fun workout ‘The Onion’ describing every vegetable imaginable, while ‘Blue River’ revisits the heartland again as if he’d never been away.
In Summary
Peter Mayer has put out a follow up called ‘Romeo’s Garage’ where he catches up after leaving off from this effort. We’ve reviewed that one too, click on the tag below. He released a few more into the new century, so it’s highly possible that we might look at those as well. So, for some classy musicianship, a voice that melds warmth and feeling, songs that breathe with ambience, you will be blown away by this, as I was, and that’s saying something.
Video
Entire Album (Select Tracks)
