Peter Narvaez

Born March 16, 1942, in Brooklyn,NY. Died November 11, 2011 When Peter Narvaez came to St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada in 1974, he knew almost no one. He had just come from the U.S. to an archival job at Memorial University's Folklore Department. Also a musician, he had been playing and recording since high school, but produced no big hits. He unpacked at his hotel, and walked to the Continental Bar downtown at the foot of Bates Hill to hear a young musician named Ron Hynes. And Hynes played one of Narvaez's songs. This story, a legend in the St. John's music scene, aptly illustrates the different yet complementary aspects of Narvaez's work. He wrote a song that preceded him to his new home and introduced him to a new community. In a bar was Hynes, whom Narvaez would befriend, play music with and write about. Peter Narvaez was born Peter Reuben Aceves on March 16, 1942, in Brooklyn, and grew up in Boonton, N.J. His father, George Aceves, was from Mexico, a labour organizer in the furrier trade, and his mother, Borinquin Maria Narvaez, was from Puerto Rico. She ran an antique business. He had one sibling, an older brother, George. Narvaez was always interested in music. An uncle taught him to play guitar and he formed his first band in high school, Pete & Jimmy With The Rhythm Knights. DJ Alan Freed was championing rock 'n' roll on New York's WINS radio station, and they connected. Freed produced the band's sole 45, So Wild (Castle Records, 1959) and published the song. One of the band's gigs was opening for a group called Tom and Jerry, an Everly Brothers cover band. Tom and Jerry later became Simon & Garfunkel. He was also influenced by Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan. In the early 1960s Narvaez started going to nightclubs in Greenwich Village and listening to the blues. He loved the sound, and that performers sang about everything – "drinking, sex, and gambling … crop failures, welfare lines, death, God" – as he said in a 1986 interview. And that they sang for everyone. He started a jug band. Having earned a history degree from Drew University in New Jersey in 1963, he then went to the folklore department of Indiana University in Bloomington, and earned his MA in 1967. One of his fellow students, Neil Rosenberg, would later become an academic colleague and fellow musician. In 1968 Narvaez formed Homegas, which had one release on the small but authoritative Takoma Label in 1971. "There is talk of reissuing it in vinyl," Rosenberg said. "It was an underground favourite, but gained zero sales." Narvaez then moved to Maine, taught at a free school for a year, and then took a position at Bliss College in Lewiston. He was quickly promoted from associate professor to dean of students, but the institution was in financial trouble. Paycheques stopped, there were accusations of malfeasance at the highest levels, and by 1972 "the upshot was that that was the end of Bliss," Rosenberg said. Narvaez gigged for a year, until Rosenberg, by then with the Folklore Department at Memorial University in St. John's, urged him to apply as an archivist with the Folklore and Language Archives. Narvaez was hired in 1974, and was soon a lecturer and then professor, beginning a career of tremendous research and output, and connecting to a music scene that was already attuned to his style. Rosenberg was one of the few owners of the Homegas release, and it was this album that Hynes had heard and played at the Continental Bar. As augured by this incident, Narvaez's musical influence was huge. As one example, in 1975 he gave a young musician named Kelly Russell a tape of fiddler Rufus Guinchard. Russell was with a then-fledgling Figgy Duff, and a folk music revival followed. (Narvaez also played harmonica on the first The Wonderful Grand Band album.) Along with English musician Denis Parker, he basically crafted the provincial blues scene, and he also created a website for the genre, www.rowdyblues.com. His bands included Bopular Demand, Cookstown Jukes, Rowdy Blues, and Divin' Duck. His last group was The Superpickers, with Sandy Morris and Glenn Collins, which released a recording in 2011. Narvaez changed his last name soon after coming to Newfoundland. He gave two reasons: one was that he was a bit disenchanted with his father and the other was that it was easier for people to pronounce. He was married four times: first when he was in his early 20s and still in university, to Rinda Metz – they had a daughter, Jamille. They divorced in the early 1970s. In St. John's he married Ann Anderson, then Anne Budgell, and, on Nov. 7, 1998, Holly Everett.