It’s with great pleasure that I inform you of the return to Maine of Peter Gallway. Gallway has been instrumental in the Maine music scene since the mid-60s having founded The Fifth Avenue Band, The Real Band and a prolific solo career as well. His skills as a producer have been enjoyed by Laura Nyro, Aztec Two-Step, Louise Taylor, Douglas Clegg, Cormac McCarthy and many more. I heard he was back in Maine and planning a performance at Slates in Hallowell on Nov. 19. He will also be participating in a special tour with the remaining two members of Devonsquare at the Boothbay Opera House on Nov. 3. I called him at his new digs in Rockland, where he and his wife, Annie Gallup, moved to from Southern California.

Q: I want to begin by thanking you for that package of your most recent releases, especially the CD titled, “Muscle and Bone.” That was one of the most impactful, important albums I have heard in a long time.

Gallway: Well, thank you, that means a lot.

Q: What surprised me was finding out that you recorded it in 2015, because the subject matter is very much like the atmosphere nowadays. It seems really current and spot-on.

Gallway: I put a great deal into that. It’s probably my most political and angriest project, in a way, that I’ve ever done in terms of response to our world and it has, my goodness, deteriorated since then.

Q: Now this interview is two-fold. It’s being run to support two shows you are involved with — one in Boothbay which is on Nov. 3, and the other show in Hallowell at Slates on the 19th of next month.

Gallway: The Boothbay show is actually a Devonsquare Farewell Tour show where I’m a special guest. I’m just kind of doing a cameo. I’ll be doing a few songs as part of the show. That’s my participation for that performance and the one at Stone Mountain Arts Center. I was their producer on a number of projects as well.

Q: Could we talk a bit about your return to Maine?

Gallway: I returned to Maine at the end of March with my wife, Annie Gallup, who is a stunning, highly intelligent and unique, accomplished and acclaimed singer-songwriter. She’s toured every State in the Union and she’s gotten significant recognition in Canada. She’s made quite a number of records. We have collaborated in a duo called Hat Check Girl. We’ll be releasing our seventh album on Oct. 26. One of the reasons we moved back to Maine was that I wanted to come back to performing, which I had done less of in more recent years. So, when I returned to Maine, the first person I called was Mark Wainer who had been in The Real Band with me. Mark’s a Brunswick boy, and he said, ‘I think you should contact Andrea Re’ who was also in the band with me as a vocalist, percussionist/drummer. So I put together a band, if you will — a kind of streamlined band that includes Mark on guitar, me on guitars and Andrea on percussion and vocals. That’s how we have been playing and will be playing at Slates.

Q: Wow, that sounds like a reunion show, of sorts. Could you go back, though, and talk about what you and Annie have been up to musically before you moved across the country to Maine?

Gallway: Well, we had a recording studio and for the last seven years we’ve done a Hat Check Girl project every year, and she has done solo projects — the latest one is called “Lucy Remembers Her Father,” which is fantastic. In fact, we both do solo projects nearly every year. We have that studio here, as well, and I continue to produce and record.

Q: Now what will this new, streamlined band be doing when it hits Hallowell?

Gallway: What we do included music from throughout my career and also includes a few chestnuts — songs written by others that feel really relevant to me — throughout the show. We do a concert show where we kind of go from a whisper to a roar in terms of dynamics.

Q: Just out of curiosity, are there any songs from “Muscle and Bone” on the set list for that Slates’ gig?

Gallway: There is actually nothing from “Muscle and Bone” included yet. Over time, I would like to be able to include some songs. Every note on that record was performed by me with the exception of Annie doing a couple of vocals. She does the “Ghost” vocals on “Citrine” and she does the spoken Gandhi piece with me. Some of it is programmed. I haven’t really found a place for it yet in this band incarnation, and there is a lot to choose from in my nearly 30 albums. So the short answer is, no, nothing yet from ‘Muscle and Bone.’

Q: Is there anything that you’d like to have passed on to the folks reading this article?

Gallway: Well, I’ve already said kind of what my and Annie’s intentions have been in our return to Maine. Returning to Maine, for those of you who are here and who read this, has just felt really right and timely and organic, in a way. A few years ago I wouldn’t have anticipated this change, but it feels amazingly right. It seems like I’m home.

Lucky Clark has spent 49 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

« Previous

Lucky Clark On Music: Jonathan Edwards

Next »

Lucky Clark On Music: Caroline Cotter