How the West Was Won
Peter Perrett - former frontman of The Only Ones - releases his debut solo album How The West Was Won. Perrett, whose incisive songcraft and sardonic drawl made him one of the most distinctive voices of the Seventies hasn’t released any music for 20 years. Bearing in mind his most famous song began “I always flirt with death” (The Only Ones‘ Another Girl, Another Planet), this is one comeback that nobody saw coming. In the hands of certain songwriters, a story of resurrection and redemption might ring a little hollow, but when the songwriter is Peter Perrett, the usual rules have never applied. Perrett makes each song on How The West Was Won sound natural and effortless, as though he were continuing a briefly interrupted conversation rather than picking up the threads of a solo career that faltered two decades ago. He claims to have barely touched a guitar in the decade between The One’s 1996 album Woke Up Sticky and the 2007 reunion of The Only Ones; with Perrett, a hiatus could so easily turn into a hibernation. Yet Perrett’s familiar voice sounds like it simply stepped out of the room for a few minutes and popped back in again. Backed by his sons - Jamie and Peter Jr. on lead guitar and bass respectively - and produced by Chris Kimsey (The Rolling Stones), Peter’s intuitive feel for words; his flair for idiosyncratic metaphors and his deadpan wit are all still as sharp as ever.
Perrett proves that he's got plenty of rock and roll left to make, a lot of courage left to make it.
Discover How the West Was Won by Peter Perrett released in 2017. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic.
Not many artists wait until they're 65 to release a debut solo album, but that is what we have here. Peter Perrett had a dose of fame in the...
More than three decades on from The Only Ones, Peter Perrett releases his debut solo album - the struggle to get here was worth it.
The Only Ones frontman is back – against all odds – with a polished album of defiant rock’n’roll, withering putdowns and odes to Kim Kardashian
How the West was WonArtist: Peter PerrettGenre: AlternativeLabel: DominoOne of rock music's true survivors, Peter Perrett's former fondness for drugs makes Keith Richards look like the Archbishop of Canterbury.
One of Britain's greatest, least celebrated songwriters returns after two decades away. Review by Thomas H Green.