. . . raw but elegant guitar architecture . . . poetic soul . . . Dave Perkins is an artist whose musical journey crisscrosses the map of American music. Perkins’ work as a guitarist includes playing bluegrass and swing with fiddle-great Vassar Clements, Texas renegade-country with Jerry Jeff Walker, singer-songwriter pop with Carole King, Americana with Guy Clark, alternative rock with Chagall Guevara, blues and jazz with violinist Papa John Creach, reggae with Mystic Meditations, and industrial hard-core with Passafist. Then, there were the occasional opportunities—seemingly from out of the blue—such as accompanying Ray Charles on his “3/4 Time” video. Pistol City Holiness (2009), Perkins’ contemporary homage to the blues received much praise in the press and online. So too did his soundtrack for the independent feature film Deadline (2012). With Fugitive Colors (2017), Perkins offers an eclectic collection of songs that seem to bridge the boundary lines of multiple genres of American music. Colored by Perkins’ ever-shifting landscape of guitar textures, the collection has been described as “Distinctively its own thing.” “ . . . will break your heart, lift your spirits, make you dance, and occasionally laugh.” “Inspired playing, inspired lyrics, distinctive voice—sounds like no one else.” The two defining characteristics of Dave Perkins’ Fugitive Colors are guitars and lyrics. While adventurous, Perkins’ guitars never lose sight of serving the song. On a record that one early listener called “genre-free,” it is Perkins’ individualistic guitar approach to song construction that blurs the question of where, if in any of the well-worn locations, this album belongs. Americana? Contemporary folk rock? Alternative rock? Singer-songwriter? The impact of guitars dominates perceptions of Fugitive Colors. But, just as impressive are Perkins’ words. On Fugitive Colors, joy and lament dance together revealing how friendship and love are resilient against the erosion of time. The facts may become fuzzy, but the feelings remain true. Deep relationships breed their own mythologies. Stories get richer with time and telling. And, music is fertile ground for their growth. In Perkins’ myths, i.e., his songs, the pain of lost love is savored, the bond of friendship, even when damaged, is unbroken. Says Perkins, “Fugitive colors are deferred emotions, delayed reactions.” They are deep feelings that went into hiding, which have risen again out of time and distance. Sometimes, those forgotten feelings are triggered by a chance encounter that stirs the memory, or they are resurrected by challenging circumstances—in Perkins’ case, a protracted battle facing his own mortality. Fugitive Colors begins with two questions: “Is there a wind that blows making old friends call, just when they’re in your mind? And, who’s been pushing that button up there, that makes your time rewind?” Our deep feelings for long-lost friends are always with us, even if below the surface. Such memories and the relationships behind them are powerful forces that shape our perceptions of who we are. These strong connections bind present to past. Given new life in music, the beauty, the intensity, humor and happiness, or the sadness of personal loss are seen as the richness of life—the bonds of relationships as the thing that holds a life together. But, lest all seem heavy and dark, Fugitive Colors joyfully celebrates those special people our minds and souls choose to remember. As Perkins sings, “Across miles and wires and satellites we see through eyes undimmed in time, and call again on our fierce tears for those who left us behind.” We each have them, those special relationships, and when they go, we reach out to them with songs, poems, prayers, and, most commonly, stories—the stories of our lives, which those friends and lovers helped write. This collection of songs commemorates the mysterious attractions that draw us to each other, and that live on, inhabiting our minds and bodies like fugitive colors.