Traveling tunesmith Case rolling in for gig at tavern

Peter Case has found a highway worth memorializing and it goes through Arkansas. Not as famous as Route 66 or as well traveled locally as Interstate 40, it's U.S. 62, which puts it just one numeral above another famous roadway -- one made famous by Bob Dylan -- Highway 61, which, of course, Dylan "re-visited."

Case's latest album, Hwy 62, is the 16th album in a solo career that began -- after stints in a couple of punk rock bands -- with his self-titled, T Bone Burnett-produced debut in 1986.

The road extends from the Mexican border at El Paso, Texas, and heads on a northeasterly route until it reaches the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls, N.Y. In between, the road covers nearly 330 miles in Arkansas, from the Oklahoma line to Fayetteville and on east through Eureka Springs, Harrison, Mountain Home, Pocahontas and Piggott, until it enters Missouri.

"I was always fascinated with Highway 62, which is only a block from where I was born near Buffalo [N.Y.]," Case says from a stop somewhere in West Virginia, nowhere near U.S. 62. "It's mostly two or three lanes all along it, and it covers a good stretch of the country, and some of it is still pretty laid-back. I've driven the road in pieces, but never all at one time."

Like the image of the traveling troubadour, Case, a singer-songwriter who embraces folk, blues and rock 'n' roll in general, is on tour and driving from town to town alone, accompanied by a 12-string electric guitar and a Martin acoustic. He notes that with friends scattered across the 50 states, he never knows who might show up and sit in with him from time to time, but he always plans to play alone, just in case.

"Of course, I'll be playing a selection of the new songs, plus material from my solo career and maybe songs from my days in a couple of bands, The Nerves and The Plimsouls," he says. "The new songs are things I wrote, except for one by Bob Dylan, 'Long Time Gone,' which I learned to do when I was a street musician.

"I got some help on the album from drummer D.J. Bonebrake of the band X and guitarist Ben Harper, who really came in and contributed. I had met him through his mother, who runs a great concert venue near Los Angeles. I've been playing there for years."

Case, 61, has played around central Arkansas several times in recent years, and he notes that his debut album was chosen as the top album of 1986 by Little Rock native Robert Palmer, writing in The New York Times.

Besides his releases, Case famously produced and played on Avalon Blues: A Tribute to the Music of Mississippi John Hurt, who Case had first discovered at age 13. He enlisted musical pals Lucinda Williams, John Hiatt, Taj Mahal, Gillian Welch, Beck, Steve and Justin Earle and Chris Smither to take part in the project.

Case also writes more than songs: In 2006, he released a memoir, As Far as You Can Get Without a Passport.

He's looking forward to returning to the White Water Tavern, a haven for songwriters: "I love that place. I always enjoy playing there."

Weekend on 11/12/2015