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Peter Cooper
Opening Day
Red Beet Records
The studious eight-year old in a Braves cap on the cover
of this record is indeed Peter Cooper, the guy who thirty-five years later is
writing the liner notes for his third solo album from Australia. The man has clearly come a long way, and it’s
those parts in between Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and a continent a half a
world away that make this record such a delight.
The first of eleven tracks is the autobiographical Much Better Now, where Cooper details
some of his employment history (among others, a waiter in a buffet restaurant
where the people “can’t see their feet.”) The man who gave us the best song ever
about baseball (715 (For Hank Aaron)
from his 2008 debut release Mission Door)
comes back with another excellent one in the title track, where unbridled
optimism at the beginning of the season when “we’re tied for first with the
whole season left to play” gives way to grim reality (“with a couple of breaks
we might take fourth place”) by the end of the first verse.
Cooper’s songwriting has matured tremendously on this
record. Always able to turn a phrase inside out effortlessly, here his
attention to detail in each song complements the clever word-play. As with his always excellent columns in the
Tennessean, he writes with a detective’s eye, picking out details that define
people, moments, situations. He takes a subject, builds on it, expands it,
makes his point and most importantly, since we’re talking about songs, he makes
it rhyme. The mood shifts from light-hearted (the eye-rolling Grandma’s Tattoo, co-written with Tommy
Womack) to serious (Quiet Little War
is about drone warfare and how you can fight a war in Afghanistan from New
Mexico and go home to your wife each night or Jenny Died at 25, the type of death where you go on living.), but
all the tracks are finely honed pieces, illustrated by pedal steel legend Lloyd
Green, Jen Gunderman on keys, bass from Dave Jacques and Dave Roe, vocals from
Eric Brace (with whom he’s recorded two fine albums), guitars from Richard
Bennett (Mark Knopfler Band) and producer Thomm Jutz.
Peter Cooper is a journalist, a college professor and
student of country music, a guest DJ on radio, a baseball fan and luckily for
us, a songwriter and a musician. With Opening Day, Cooper steps up into the
bigs.
Curtis Lynch
September 2013
