RFI: Peter Ivers

Can someone please shed some light on this seemingly little-known figure and maybe say a few words about his (few, obscure) records?

co-wrote the lady in the radiator song!

I knew of him as the writer of "In Heaven" (The Lady in the Radiator song) when I stumbled across a copy of his posthumous anthology Nirvana Peter in a dollar bin about ten years ago. This is probably the best place to start, as it includes several of the better songs from his last two albums along with several previously unreleased tracks that are among his best work.

His first two albums--Knight of the Blue Communion (1969), credited to Peter Ivers Band and co-written with Tim Mayer, and Take It Out on Me (1970)--are very much out there and rather difficult for me to describe. Both employ female lead vocalists and unconventional song structures, and are very free and complex. Peter contributes backing vocals here and there, but is primarily songwriter/arranger and harmonica player (his primary instrument; he was taught by Little Walter!). Take It Out on Me was rejected by Epic, his label at the time, and remained unreleased until a few years ago.

After a few years in limbo, he signed to Warner Bros and released Terminal Love in 1974, a collection of far more straightforward material (still pretty strange, though; only "straightforward" when compared to the first two records). At this point, I'd say he was doing something similar to what Sparks were doing on their first two records, but I feel like that may be stretching it a bit just for the sake of finding a reference point. The label's solution for the album's initial poor sales was to have him open for Fleetwood Mac, which he did, but his over-the-top performance (which involved dressing only in a diaper and spraying the audience with the milk-filled squirt gun contained within) caused this plan to backfire.

His last album was self-titled and released in 1976. This is his most straightforward singer-songwriter-type album, but it still feels like a natural followup to Terminal Love and contains several of his best songs (and his best-titled song: "You Used To Be Stevie Wonder"). There's a pretty strange duet with Carly Simon on this one.

Between his last album and his death (he was murdered in 1983), he continued to write (several songs on Nirvana Peter are from his musical The Vitamin Pink Fantasy Review; he also teamed up with Franne Golde and wrote songs for The Pointer Sisters, Diana Ross, and Dee Dee Bridgewater) and hosted USA Network's New Wave Theatre.

There was a very good article somewhere online several years ago that I have been unable to find ever since that gave a thorough overview of his life that mentioned what many of his friends and contemporaries saw as one of his major artistic flaws: his rewriting and revising his material to the point that the final released versions had lost all of the essence and energy that made the original demo recordings so great. Luckily, The Untold Stories appeared a few years ago, containing several previously unreleased songs, including several demos that do indeed surpass their studio counterparts ("Holding the Cobra" being a particularly strong example).

The recent biography In Heaven Everything Is Fine was very enlightening and was part of a brief, seemingly inexplicable revival of interest in Ivers around '08/'09 which also saw the releases of Take It Out on Me and The Untold Stories. I just did a quick search and it appears that all of his other records have been reissued on CD as well!

I personally think all of his records are great, but they cover such a wide spectrum that most people will probably not dig the whole catalog...I mean, parts of Take It Out on Me sound like Poly Styrene fronting US Maple; I don't think anyone would consider this as "universally appealing". Anyway, he's brilliant, check him out!

it's weird to think of ivers as little-known since new wave theatre made such a huge impact on me

I've read a few good articles on him, mostly by researching NWT online

apparently a lot of the NWT folks (crews and bands) hated him, guess he had a somewhat grating showbiz personality?

I really, really love Terminal Love.

Thank you very much - especially cwkiii!

In 1971 and 1972, WNET and WGBH presented Jesus, A Passion Play for Americans, a play produced by Jac Venza, Christopher Sarson and written and directed by Timothy Mayer. The music and lyrics were Ivers' from Knight of the Blue Communion. Other important roles are played by Andreas Teuber, Asha Puthli, Steve Kaplan and Laura Esterman. The work was broadcast as part of the WNET American Playhouse series. As a rock retelling of the story of Jesus, the work was a precursor to classics of that genre, such as Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar.

kinda wanna see this

here's a promo vid for the ivers biog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1l1nWFzn9s

following related vids on that can send you to some v weird places

Watched the video. Bought the book. Let the good times roll.

I think it was the description of his Fleetwood Mac support act above that really sold me, though.

holy shit.

this guy is one of a kind. like "what am i listening to"

he's not really *like* Sparks but I guess that's the closest thing I can think of, a really arch/weird approach to pop music (i'm listening to Terminal Love)

or some of the "commercial" Pere Ubu stuff (again he sounds nothing like it, but this idea of a true weirdo trying to be "commercial" in an exceedingly bizarre way that would never succeed)

Like one of the posters above, I found his posthumous compilation Nirvana Peter in a dollar bin. He's like a super-arch, camp but unfunny version of mid-70s "sophisticated" singer-songwriters like Peter Allen. He's also atrocious, I'm only tempted to listen to more of his stuff to see how far a guy with obvious musical talent can stray from listenability. You make some great points, however!

"Terminal Love" shuffled up this weekend, and it certainly takes on a new eeriness post-pandemic

I've always got a Lou Reed - Transformer feel from the production and overall sound of Terminal love but a bit more glammy and weird