“I got myself a singer and a guitarist,” said Peter Mulvey, referring to Jenna Nicholls and Ross Bellenoit, his partners in the new album, Floyd Mercantile. It takes its name from the small town of Floyd in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia, where they recorded in a decommissioned general store. In their recent performance at Jammin’ Java, Mulvey and Nichols shared songs from that album, their solo work, and some classic American standards.
Much of Mulvey’s music, which he’s been making for decades, since he started busking while spending a semester in Ireland during college, is influenced by his activism. With “Your Considerable Charms,” he completed lyrics begun by Maisie P. Gordon, who ran a movie theater in the Bowery in the ’40s, and would give out blankets to the unhoused at night. He joked (maybe, I’m not sure) that the mischievous “Greenland Shark,” the first song he and Nicholls wrote together, was a response to difficult times.
While he writes some political songs, Peter probably writes more that are personal. “Green and Grey” is a love song written while he was falling in love with his wife 8 years ago. Introducing “Haydenville,” which he wrote for his 5-year-old son, he mentioned how, long before they met, his wife was badly injured in a ballooning accident. At the time, she was living in a 5-story walk-up in New York, and had to leave the city temporarily because of her injuries.
Watch Peter Mulvey perform “Haydenville” live on YouTube:
Coincidentally, Jenna and her husband also lived in a 300-square-foot, five-story walk-up in Manhattan for 16 years. She joked about going the Tenement Museum and walking into a facsimile of her own apartment. Nicholls wrote “The Great Migration,” about leaving New York, the day after she met Peter at the Vanilla Bean Cafe in Connecticut. “Dreamers Awake,” she said, was written for the night owls, her husband in particular, who worked late into the night as a bartender. A number of her songs, including, “You, Me and the Moon” and “No Boots,” were written for a western-themed theater production. Unfortunately, the production closed.
Jenna wrote “Piggy” for her mother, who raised three kids very close in age, imagining an alternate path her life might’ve taken. “Sunday Drivers” had me pinned down: when she’s with her husband, she does all the driving, because he’s not a very good driver. My partner also does all the driving, because I’m the human incarnation of Toonces the Driving Cat from Saturday Night Live. (I’m not sure how many cars I wrecked before I stopped driving.)
Watch Jenna Nicholls perform “Sunday Drivers” live on YouTube:
While some of their songs have interesting backstories, Peter admitted that “When You Were Mine” was written by a prompt. Echoing his mentor, Chris Smither, he talked about the process of creativity is a mystery. Their first set started off “Some People,” and it also included “Back to You,” and “Are You Listening,” ending with the Hoagie Carmichael classic “Skylark.”
At one point, Peter made a comment about how, in every relationship, one personal loads the dishwasher like an engineer, and the other loads it like an unhinged lunatic. In the 40 years my parents were married, my dad never quite figure it out. He’d run the dishwasher, and stuff would still be dirty. My mom would lose it with him. At any point, either could’ve resolved this ongoing conflict, either my dad, by asking my mom to show him how to do it right, or my mom, by offering to show my dad how to do it. In more than 40 years, that never occurred to either of him. I learned from this. My partner moved in last month. When she corrects on me something, I accept her input enthusiastically, and I look at it as a chance to grow and improve.
The second set included a left-field cover of Paul McCartney’s “Hey Diddle,” “Butterfly Kisses,” which Jenna wrote and Peter sings, “Whose Gonna Love You Now,” “You Don’t Have To Tell Me,” and “Beginning to See the Light.” During the set, Peter mentioned their next project will be the songs of Mr. Rogers. They finished the second set with a Maceo Pinkerton song, and “pretended” to leave the stage before doing Benny Goodman’s “Moonglow” and the timeless “I’ll Be Seeing You.”
I’ve seen Peter open for Chris Smither, but this was my first time getting to see him doing his thing for a full show. It was also my first time seeing Jenna, who has an incredible voice. The songs, both their own and the American standards they did, were terrific, making for a lovely evening.
