Raining in the Heartland / The Songs of Peter Dubow

1. Welcome to the Human Race
2. I Will Wait for You
3. Red River Road
4. Where Do You Go When You’re Gone
5. Where Is Love
6. Why Can’t We Fall in Love Again
7. Shuffle in G
8. Blue Tears
9. All I Do
10. Your Time Will Come
11. Walk in My Shoes
12. Tell the Truth
13. Walk through the World
14. Raining in the Heartland

Introduction from the CD booklet:

Here you have the music of Peter Dubow, a noted San Diego songwriter who also played keyboards with many of North County’s best-known musicians. This album, a tribute to Peter by his musician friends—just a few of the many people who knew him and loved him—captures the spirit of his work, at once playful and pensive, intelligent, vibrant, funny and poignant. It presents 14 of his songs, chosen from an ample catalogue by the musicians who played with him over the course of a lifetime. It also includes an extemporaneous recording of Peter himself, from the music room, playing and singing one of his last songs, “Raining in the Heartland.”

Born in San Diego in 1947, Peter grew up in Oceanside, where from a very early age he took a keen interest in all the burgeoning manifestations/flashes of what we can now see as post-war popular culture (although Peter himself would never have called it that). We’re talking incipient television (Dave Garroway and Steve Allen come quickly to mind), comedy (Soupy Sales, Peter Sellars, Beyond the Fringe, Mort Sahl), and every aspect of popular music (from Dave Brubeck to Little Richard). What at one time might well have been vaudeville, now writ large across the entire entertainment panorama of 1950s America—this was Peter’s metier. (He once conducted an interview with Cal Worthington of Dodge-sales fame, named the family parakeet “Elvis” in 1956, and appeared briefly in Woody Allen’s Bananas.)

However, in an era of “Johnny B. Good,” the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, it was music that became Peter’s primary passion. He started out in Marin County, playing in a group with fellow San Diegan Bob McPharlin. He returned to the San Diego area
in the early 70s and rejoined the local music scene, forming bands over the years with some of North County’s leading musicians—Jack Tempchin, John Scott, Jeff Moore, Burt Newman and Jerry McCann. Peter appeared with the Paladins, the Beat Farmers, Rosie Flores, Public Domain, Cry on Cue, and most recently, Rocket Science, a band he formed with Jack Tempchin to feature their own songs. At one point in the arc of a 30-year musical career he backed up Chuck Berry in front of 50,000 fans at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium. But his longtime musical home was the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, where he frequently sat in with visiting bands—including the Wailers, who used his reggae anthem “Where Is Love?” for the lead track on their 1996 album Jah Message.

Peter Dubow passed away in September 1999. He is fondly remembered as an astute musician and a man of great integrity, humor and kindness.