The Boston Phoenix

...Peter Parcek plays and writes barrel-housers like the instrumental "Café du Monde Boogie" with grit and spirit. He shows his diversity in the twang-und-drang of "Lightning Hopkins Goes Surfing." But his music's heart is on display in beautiful songs like the smoldering ballad "Tears like Diamonds," the float-and-sting mix of gliding chords and soloing in "Just Play Rhythm," and "New Year's Eve," a number that would sound right coming out of Howlin' Wolf's mouth.

"I needed to evolve to this point before I could make a record that had a direction and an identity," says Parcek, who played in local outfit Nine Below Zero and has been a sideman to Pinetop Perkins and other veteran bluesmen. "Before, it might have been more about chops and less about heart."

Indeed, Parcek has long had a local reputation as a dynamic musician--but one who picked an awful lot of notes. He explains: "I'm self-taught, so I had no clue. I started playing the simplest stuff. There was a period when I was a purist. If it wasn't Howlin' Wolf or John Lee Hooker, I didn't want to know about it. At a certain point, I turned a corner where I could do things I thought I never would on guitar. And I just wanted to do them all the time!

"It's also very tough trying to make a living doing this [which Parcek does], so I thought I had to play all-out to impress people and get gigs. The irony is that with intelligent, sensitive listeners, you don't have to do that."

Indeed, all Parcek needs do is lay "Tears like Diamonds" on them. Around his properly wizened vocal, he builds an affecting tableau. Solo breaks roll with gentle, nimble understatement--notes hitching like the words of a man trying to cope with a broken heart. His fills spill out in weeping tones, sweetened by delicate finger vibrato. And in the background there's a moody wash of feedback and slide-induced string buzz--an ambient layer that's a crucial part of the song's canvass. It's turns like these that make Evolution such a welcome departure from the majority of releases by local blues artists, which are typically by-the-numbers affairs. "I was listening in particular to albums by Gillian Welch and Emmy-lou Harris. I was trying to get a little of the mystery that Daniel Lanois gets in his productions."

Parcek's joined on disc by legendary producer/organist Al Kooper, who supplies moody B-3 on the title track, and the great guitarist Ronnie Earl, who pitches some fleet licks into "New Year's Eve." But the album's surprise is rocker Jannifer Trynin, who puts one of her most powerful vocal performances into Jimmy Reed's "Shame, Shame, Shame"...