December 22, 2024

Skylight Webzine

Online since 2000

The New Album by Alt-Country Pioneer Pete Berwick

Cowpunk / alt-country pioneer and Northern Illinois resident Pete Berwick has been touring and recording and hammering out hundreds of shows a year, as a solo artist and with his bands, for over four decades. Along with releasing six albums, he is also an author and actor, and has written and published four novels, as well as having appeared in film and television.

He is also an amateur boxer. “Can’t kill a man born to hang” is Berwick’s motto, as he fearlessly travels from town to town and roadhouse bar to roadhouse bar with a lifetime of critically acclaimed songs and his battered six string. 

Over a dozen of his songs have been featured in movies and television, several of his albums have been placed in the year’s top ten by various media sources, and his “Ain’t No Train Outta Nashville” album, recorded and shelved on Music Row in 1992 and eventually released in 2007, peaked at #5 on XCOUNTRY RADIO, now OUTLAW RADIO.

“Island” is Pete Berwick’s sixth studio album, with backing band The Mugshot Saints delivering the musical firepower, produced by Jason Botka at Skye Bleu Studios in Villa Park, Illinois, and according to his critics, his finest work and masterpiece, scraped from the trenches and ruins of the long, hard miles and highs and lows of his hard-fought battles in the music industry. The early reviews of this grizzled veteran’s 2019 album release describe fairly well what his world-wearied heart was attempting to say on this one:
 

“Pete Berwick is one of the best things to happen to punk-infused, alt-country leaning, folk music since Johnny Cash made his impact on this planet. There is no other entertainer in the business that works as hard or harder than Pete Berwick, hands down! “Island” is the next step in the evolution of a master craftsman who refuses to slow down, become complacent or allow the status quo to interfere with his art.”Joshua Smotherman MTM Middle Tennesse Music.com www.midtnmusic.com

 Album Credits:All songs written by Pete Berwick, Pete Berwick Publishing BMI, Nashville, Tennessee Shotgun Records Pete Berwick – Lead vocals, acoustic guitarJason Botka – Keys, acoustic and electric guitarJennifer McCleary Botka – background vocals Johnny Gadeikis – BassLuke Smith – DrumsJeff Givens – Background vocals on “I’m Gettin’ Tired Of This Place.”Produced and mixed by Jason Botka at Skye Bleu Studios, Villa Park, IllinoisMastered by Blaise BartonAlbum photography and cover design by Michelle Shalloo Gadeikis 

Source:
Shotgun Records