Longtime Connecticut guitarist Jeff Pevar, now based on the West Coast, plays with so many musical outfits he often uses gunslinger's mottos.
"`Have guitar will travel...... I'll use that one," Pevar says over the phone
from San Francisco. ..... "or 'walk softly and carry a big guitar.'"
After playing with such varied outfits as Phil Lesh and Friends and the
similarly Grateful Dead- minded Jazz Is Dead, he's back on tour with his
primary band, CPR.
The band, for which he provides guitar, vocals, some writing and the initial
P, is led by '60s rock icon David Crosby and the musical son to whom he was
reunited late in his life, James Raymond.
CPR is on tour to promote the new album "Just Like Gravity," issued this week
on the Gold Circle label, as the band invades New England to play a handful
of shows of various sizes from Saturday's Ben & Jerry's One World One Heart
Festival in Vermont to the Garde Arts Center in New London on Wednesday.
"The process has taken the better part of two years," Pevar says of the new
recording. "But it was worth the wait. It represents CPR more as a band than
the debut record, which happened at the very inception of the ensemble."
Since the self-titled debut in 1998, and its subsequent tours (which produced
the 1999 "Live at the Wiltern" CD), the three have gotten closer as
musicians. "With all the time we've been together we've had a chance to
represent the songs in more of a cohesive manner this time," Pevar says.
The first single, a rock 'n' roller called "Katie Did," features Crosby
lyrics put to Pevar's music.
"It's yet another childhood dream to have the opportunity to hear songs I've
written or co-written on the radio," he says
Each of the members has been busy since the first CPR album. Crosby, most
prominently, went on the big Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young tour. Raymond
scored a number of television shows. And Pevar continued to learn more Dead
songs when his Phil Lesh tour last spring led to a more recent tour with Jazz
Is Dead, which has made a seperate career improvising on old Grateful Dead
tunes.
"I was very flattered to be asked to tour with a number of musicians I've
admired for years - Rob Morgenstein and T Lavitz of the Dixie Dregs, and
Alphonso Johnson from Weather Report and Santana's band."
The band, which takes a jazz turn on old Dead songs, has a revolving
membership and has included drummer Billy Cobham and Jimmy Herring, whose
place Pevar was taking. Herring and Pevar had played together on the Spring
2000 Lesh tour.
Pevar could use some of the songs he had learned to tour with Lesh, but "I
did end up having to learn another couple dozen other songs. By now, I figure
every year I'll probably have to learn another dozen, or so Grateful Dead
songs."
Pevar has also learned a lot of Crosby's songs. Besides CPR's two albums,
it's been playing CSN songs like "Long Time Gone," "DÈjý vu" and "Almost Cut
My Hair" and songs Crosby played when he was in the Byrds, such as "Eight
Miles High" and songs from Crosby's first solo album in 1971, "If I Could
Only Remember My Name" such as "Music Is Love" and "Tamalpais High."
"It's fun to pull from all his varied musical influences that form this
legacy," Pevar says of Crosby. And despite a long career that has included
drug abuse, prison and liver transplant and the donation to aid Melissa
Etheridge's wish for children, he's doing great for a guy who turns 60 in
August.
"God bless the guy," says Pevar, "He's like a cat. Throw him up in the air
and he lands on his feet.
"I believe the music we create together has a lot to do with his vitality. I
know he loves playing with CSN, he's been doing that for 30 years. But
nothing will keep a guy young like playing new music."
CPR plays the free Ben & Jerry's One World One Heart Festival at Sugarbush
Resort in Warren, Vt., Saturday on a roster with Tonic, the Robert Cray Band,
Joan Osborne, Cubanismo and Entrain on the main stage.
Sunday, CPR headlines a show at the Calvin Theatre in Northampton, Mass.,
followed by dates at the Newport, R.I., Yachting Center Tuesday and the Garde
Arts Center in New London on Wednesday.
Band members will remain busy after the monthlong tour. Crosby will be back
in Connecticut with Crosby, Stills and Nash at ctnow.com Oakdale Theatre in
Wallingford Aug. 20.
Pevar will lead his own band in a show at Max Creek's 30th Camp Creek. The
July 27-29 event at Indian Lookout Country Club in Mariaville, N.Y., also
features the Derek Trucks Band, Radiators, Persuasions and Dirty Dozen Brass
Band.
