Right now, the big bookshelf full of videotapes in my basement is a little bit intimidating. Half the time, I don’t dare look at it when I’m rushing out the door in the morning to go teach my classes.

I feel like the guy who looked at a mountaintop in South Dakota and saw Mount Rushmore.

In the ten years that I have known Peter Case, and the seven that I’ve been filming his shows, I’ve noticed how songs come and go in his live sets. He values spontaneity — we talked about this in an interview recorded in his Santa Monica backyard, what seems like half a lifetime ago.

Songs from Full Service No Waiting and Flying Saucer Blues were played for awhile and then retired (despite many requests, the only time he has ever played “Two Heroes” from start to finish was the day he recorded it). “Space Monkey,” long a crowd favorite, dropped off the radar in 2003. Thank You St. Jude, with re-recordings of songs from his three Geffen albums, brought back some old favorites. In 2005 there was a Plimsouls reunion, and songs like “The Oldest Story In The World” and “A Million Miles Away” made sporadic appearances.

I was curious what songs Peter would pick for his first performance in more than six months. He had told me at lunchtime that he’s been busy writing new material, but that he doesn’t plan on playing any tonight.

Seven years ago, I drove to Cecil Community College in eastern Maryland to make a video recording of singer-songwriter Peter Case for a documentary project that didn’t even have a name yet.

On Saturday, August 29 — 90,000 miles and 200 hours of footage later — I met Peter at Fur Peace Ranch in southern Ohio to record a historic occasion. It was Peter’s return to performing after a six-month recovery from heart bypass surgery, and it seemed a fitting conclusion to the long journey of Troubadour Blues.

My friend Kerri McMullen, a photojournalist from Columbus, came along to preserve the day in pictures. I’ve included some here, to get this blog rolling.

Jorma Kaukonen, guitarist extraodinaire for the Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, is one person who really followed through on that Sixties dream of going up the country and buying a piece of land. Many years and much hard work later, it’s developed into a residential music camp and performing arts center, snuggled into the hills of southern Ohio near the West Virginia border.

Drive till the four-lane highway ends, then follow the two-lane highway until this sign appears.

The two-lane turns into a one-lane, then into gravel, and winds around a bit past a couple of farms. Through the gate into a little rustic paradise with wildflowers everywhere. The concert hall sits up on the crest of a hill.

Another repost from my musical pilgrimage through the Deep South in summer 2006. This item was posted Tuesday, July 4, after I made my roundabout way back from Texas through Hank Williams country in central Alabama.

Sunday’s drive was a marathon along the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coasts and into Alabama. Right as I got into cajun country at Lafayette, the rain started pouring down so hard that it was hard to see the road. I think I missed a lot of beautiful country driving through that rainstorm. By the time the rain let up, all the place names that are familiar to me from James Lee Burke’s great mystery novels (set in nearby New Iberia) — Iberville, Evangeline, Bayou Teche, Breaux Bridge — had gone by.

Another in a series of reposts from my 2006 roadtrip through the Mississippi Delta to Houston and back.

I just ran across his business card in my wallet and realized I had completely neglected to mention this guy … Andy “Sugarcane” Collins, bluesman from Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Like Mick “Crocodile” Dundee or John “Babbacombe” Lee, he has a middle name that tells of who he is and what he has done.