I have been listening to and reviewing the music of Peter Gallway since the late 90s. When one follows an artist with a great deal of interest for that long it is easy to feel that you know them by what is revealed in their music. One constructs a persona from the music. I imagined a quiet confident man, an artist, unconsciously cool, attracted to moments of thoughtful clarity and compelled to share what he finds to be real. His songs are crafted to bring these moments to the listener with their depth intact; the lyrics are focused and articulate and the arrangements are frequently pared down to the essential sounds. Although clues to the contrary abound in his work, it was easy to imagine that Gallway was just a younger less-experienced version of this guy for his whole life, but his path took him through places that required redemption in order to become his best self. It is like an old friend suddenly trusting you with a pivotal and difficult part of their history. It is surprising and not surprising at the same time, giving retrospective clarity to the clues that were dropped over the years.
As befits his vocation as a performing songwriter, the book is written in non-rhyming verse, compressing pivotal moments in the expressive language of a poet. Like an album, each poem speaks with a particular voice. For example, when he is describing childhood experiences he is a wide-eyed boy with no frame of reference for the things that happen around him. Gallway allows this boy to speak without spoiling the moment with his elder interpretation. His mastery of songwriting serves him well, choosing details that are easily relatable. Ordinary things of childhood are remembered in resonant detail, “Fresh Meadows, Flushing, New York./ A cul-de-sac, redbrick and wood row houses,/ my tricycle, sandals, metal roller skates in summer,/ the teeth-chattering vibration through your feet/ on the concrete./ I love my crew cut and my striped/ T-shirt.”
He tells of his powerful response to music from an early age. “Naps and cookies in the afternoon,/and music, classical music—/ Pictures at an Exhibition, Finlandia—/ and I am transported,/ in harmony, majesty, tension,/ waves crashing, calm waters,/ losing myself those afternoons/ on a cot after cookies./ Amazing some kindergarten teacher/would think to give us this,/ the first music to carry me away.”
Being a child of the 1950s, he lived in the shadow of WWII and the glow of the TV. Images of the war, Hitler, McCarthyism and the radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds combined to make him feel so desperately fearful one Saturday night that he tearfully ran after his parents’ green Chrysler trailed by his brother and babysitter because he was afraid that he would never see them again. Childhood was thick with things that lived behind the curtain of the adult world. He feels the distance in his parents relationship to each other, but it is only as an adult that he finds out that his father had wanted out of the marriage before he was born and reflects that “It is no wonder I lived so much of my life in longing and anger.”
Moving from Long Island to The Village was as formative as it was bewildering. “The Village was night clubs,/ coffee houses,/ stale smells in the street,/ Lenny Bruce on the marquee,/ the Purple Onion, a strip club/ on West 3rd Street./ What the hell is a strip club?” There were also theaters with films like Breathless, La Dolce Vida, The 400 Blows, Rebel Without a Cause, where he could “identify with the loneliness,/ with romantic and sexual yearning,/ with feeling lost and angry,/ hungry for something I could not name.” He becomes friends with Arthur Miller’s son Bobby, and hangs out with him as Marilyn Monroe works out a song with Arthur in their apartment. He is free to roam and be overwhelmed by the intensity around him… “I was an accident waiting to happen.”
Going to see The Beatles’ Hard Days Night, seeing The Rolling Stones live at Carnegie Hall and his first electric guitar put him on the path that always awaited him. He formed The Strangers while he was in high school and soon found himself hustling around The Village, befriending up and coming artists and catching the attention of a record label. Perhaps inevitably, given the time and place and his inexpressible need, Gallway is introduced to heroin. He tells this part of the story without explanations or excuses. Heroin was one of many intense things he was not emotionally prepared for; it felt great and made him want more. He was addicted, and he would spend the greater part of the next ten years addicted. He explores the ups and downs, making music, succeeding with a band, finding and loosing friends and lovers, near misses and lucky breaks. Although he hangs out with some legendary musicians, one never feels that he is name dropping; they are simply part of his story. Some, such as Laura Nyro are an enduring inspiration. Years later he would sing, “From high above the street, wind swirling your hair/ You sing to the city and it feels like religion.”
Eventually he feels that he is letting himself and others down. He nears the bottom in a time when he “didn’t yet know/ anyone in recovery.” He looks back on losing a faithful mentor and recognizes a turning point, “In the end,/ you become untouchable./ It’s not a good place to be,/ but it will make you/ do something.” There were detours through coke and alcohol on the way to recovery but eventually he found his way to a meeting and started his sober life. There were still things he needed to do, “To live
with how I felt,/ and then later,/ know how I felt,/ and even later,/ know how angry/ I was,/ and how hurt./ And later still,/ what to begin/ to do/ about it.”
Sobriety did not fix everything in Gallway’s creative and personal life but he managed to mature and focus on the direction of his life. “Being an artist is finding,/ and expressing,/ and creating, an authentic/ emotional connection/ with others,/ and being a therapist,/ and record producer/ for that matter,/ is helping others/ to do the same.” The Hardtail Strat of the title is a valued musical instrument, the brush and paint of a musician, but it also played a role in a pivotal moment in his life. Over the years the Strat had appreciated in value to where its sale provided enough money for him to start on his BA, which then enabled him to pursue a Master’s Degree in Counseling.
The reader sees by turns through the eyes of a child, a young musician, an addict, a star-crossed lover, a person in recovery, and eventually someone who arrives at a place of peace and purpose. The limitations of the person at the center of each stage of his life are understood without judgement. One gets a sense of the continuity of his core sensibility. Each poem is impactful and deeply honest, creating the authentic emotional connection that Gallway values.
Hardtail Strat covers “part one” of Gallway’s creative journey, bringing us up to the point where he is free to do his finest work. He continues to make music prolifically on a high level with various collaborators. If you are not already familiar with his music you will want to take a long dive into his catalogue. Several of his song lyrics are presented throughout the book and these would be a good place to start listening. His 1997 release A Night in Time has a lot of great material and has always stood out to me as the gold standard of a live recording with a band. His duo work with his wife Annie Gallup as Hat Check Girl and other recent collaborations and solo work are worth seeking out as a sequel to this memoir. —Michael Devlin
