About three months ago I was searching iTunes for new music when I came upon a couple of albums by Dave Alvin [Eleven Eleven and From An Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Tracks]. I know him by his reputation for being a damn fine guitar player. I knew he wrote Long White Cadillac [Dwight Yoakam]. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I did find was pure roots music gold. Alvin once wrote on his Bandcamp page “There are two types of folk music: quiet folk music and loud folk music. I play both.” This is the best description I have found anywhere that describes the music that writers classify as ‘Americana.’ Alvin’s music incorporates elements of blues, R & B, rockabilly, country, jazz, gospel, Western swing, Tex-Mex and Cajun music. Gram Parsons had a different name for it – he called it Cosmic American Music. Whatever one chooses to call it, I call it my latest musical addiction. As addicts are wont to do, I’m always searching for my next fix. Right now, Dave Alvin is the next fix that will do for awhile.
A fellow Scorpio, Dave Alvin was born November 11, 1955 [“Eleven Eleven”] in Downey, California. He and his older brother Phil [two years older] used to frequent places like the Ash Grove and the Shrine Auditorium. They would see the likes of Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Buddy Guy, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Not only did the Alvin brothers watch these guys, they got to be friends and hang out with them. They learned roots music from the source. They and their friends formed The Blasters in 1979. They were rockabilly but a little bit more, including blues, R&B and country. Their music could easily have come from Sun Records. The Blasters were contemporaries of Dwight Yoakam, Los Lobos and X. In the early 1980s they weren’t in the picture as far as musical interests go. English hard rock and heavy metal and American blues rock were more my speed, but as they say, better late than never. All was not well in the band, though. Phil Alvin was of the mind of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Dave wrote most of the songs and wanted to go in a more singer/songwriter direction. The Blasters lasted three albums before they imploded. Phil got his way, and Dave went solo. Of the band, Dave Alvin said:
“The Blasters were 5 guys who
all grew up together loving old blues, rockabilly, etc. So we were/are all
brothers and we all played together and fought like brothers. It wasn’t just Phil and I who were
fighting. We all did. That emotional intensity between all five of us is why I
think we were such a tight and, well, intense live band. I left for too many
reasons to go into but that intensity that I just mentioned, got to be to too
much to take on a daily basis.”
Eleven Eleven and From an Old Guitar were
the hook. I figured that whatever he did in between the two albums had to be
good as well. He recorded two albums with Phil - Common Ground: Dave Alvin
& Phil Alvin Play and Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy [2014] and Lost
Time [2015] – and one with Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Downey to Lubbock
[2018]. All three albums were done with the same band, The Guilty Men. The two
albums with Phil were blues records. The album with Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the
“hippie country singer” with a high lonesome voice, was a little of everything
[blues, country, folk, rock]. It’s all good and I was “all in” – I had to get
the rest. Not only is the choice of material first-rate, but I like the band.
Alvin plays with another guitarist [Chris Miller] who plays slide. They trade
solos much like two guitar players from a band of renown from Georgia. Phil
Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore are great singers. Dave Alvin isn’t as good, but
he doesn’t embarrass himself, either. He does that “half-singing, half-talking”
thing the way Frank Zappa did. Alvin and
Jimmie Dale Gilmore are recording their second album together as I write this.
It will be mine!
Dave Alvin’s music is fairly eclectic, and I can put it into three different “boxes”: blues rock, singer/songwriter, and musicologist/song interpreter.
Blues rock
Romeo's Escape [1987] – After Alvin left The Blasters, he joined The Knitters [recording Poor Little Critter on the Road], a country folk offshoot of X. In a “seemed like a good idea at the time” moment, he joined X, long enough to record See How We Are. But Alvin wanted to go his own way. This album was Alvin’s first as a singer, about which he said:
“I had never sung before, and I had to get drunk to do
it. So when I listen to it, I hear a drunk caterwauling. Now, I'm more gentle
about it. It's taken a lot of years to figure out how to sing.”
Here Alvin rearranged three Blasters songs [Long White Cadillac, Border Radio and Jubilee Train] and the one song he wrote for X [Fourth of July].
Blue Blvd [1991] & Museum of Heart [1993] – If Raymond Chandler wrote songs instead of novels, this is what they would sound like. The songs are very good, the musicianship is top-notch. I have only one complaint – the drums are too loud. If I was “king for a day” I would fix that and put them lower in the mix. Dave Alvin’s songs don’t need an arena rock sound.
Ashgrove [2004] – After two albums of acoustic music [King of California and Blackjack David], Alvin plugs back in and looks back. The album alternates between blues rock and country folk. The opening title song describes the long-closed LA nightclub where Dave Alvin and brother Phil would see their musical heroes – Big Joe Turner, Lightnin’ Hopkins, the Rev. Gary Davis and many more. Not only does he look back but he also describes his own life of being a musician and all it entails. The blues are spread out in Black Sky, Black Haired Girl, Sinful Daughter, and Out of Control. He leaves the blues of the Ashgrove and heads for Texas where he does a country tune, Rio Grande. Another country tune, Nine Volt Heart, is a nostalgic look back on the importance of the radio in peoples’ lives. The hushed, fingerpicked The Man In The Bed is a eulogy to his late father. Somewhere in Time co-written with Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo and Louis Pérez which appeared on their release The Ride, released a month before Alvin’s version here. Alvin’s band of minstrels, the Guilty Men [including Greg Leisz], are superb.
Singer/Songwriter
King of California [1994] – Alvin decided, after three records with an electric band, to cut his next batch of tunes acoustically. Relieved of the burden of having to compete with a loud band, Alvin found his voice, to which he credits producer Greg Leisz. As with Romeo’s Escape, Alvin decided to re-record several songs from his back catalog [Border Radio, Barn Burning, Fourth of July, Bus Station, Little Honey, Every Night About This Time]. These songs from loud electric bands [The Blasters, X] are done in a quiet, intimate setting. He added some well-chosen covers [East Texas Blues (Whistlin' Alex Moore), Mother Earth (Memphis Slim), and What Am I Worth (George Jones), a duet with Syd Straw]. The 25th anniversary release also includes a duet with Katy Moffat (The Cuckoo), and a very fine cover of Merle Haggard’s Kern River. The addition of several covers goes a bit against the “singer/songwriter” thing, but it does add to a quitter, acoustic direction that accommodates Alvin’s limited singing range. He’s not a shouter like his brother Phil, but with these songs he doesn’t need to be. The quiet arrangements and his low baritone voice are a perfect fit.
Blackjack David [1998] – Blackjack David picks up where King of California left off. Like King of California, Blackjack David is produced by Greg Leisz and was recorded with pretty much the same team that created King of California. Unlike King of California, Blackjack David has only one cover – the title track. The two albums complement each other very well.
Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women [2009] - Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women [2009] was done with an all-female band [most of whom are from Austin], excellent musicians all. The most notable collaborator is Cindy Cashdollar on dobro and steel guitar. The drummer is Lisa Pankrantz, who replaced Don Heffington in the Guilty Men [making them the Guilty Ones] after he passed away. There are two fiddle players [Laurie Lewis and Amy Farris], one other guitarist [Nina Gerber], bassist Sarah Brown, and singer Christy McWilson. The band came together as a one-off to play San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, but Alvin like playing with these musicians so much he wanted to cut an album with them. The music combined folk, blues, rock and roll, Western swing, bluegrass, R&B, rockabilly and Cajun. They change the Blasters’ Marie Marie into a zydeco number. Boss of the Blues is a Western swing nod to Big Joe Turner, with whom Dave and Phil Alvin got to know and hang out as teenagers when they would see him at the LA nightclub the Ash Grove. Nana and Jimi is about Dave’s mom dropping him off at the LA Forum to see a Jimi Hendrix concert. Downey Girl is about Karen Carpenter. They even recorded Que Sera, Sera [!].
Musicologist/Song Interpreter
Public Domain [2000] – As the title
suggests, these are traditional songs that have been around so long nobody
knows who wrote them Instead of
note-for-note recreations that would be museum pieces, Dave Alvin does these old
folk, country and blues tunes in a most nontraditional way.
West of the West [2006] - Unlike his collection of traditional folk and blues songs, this one is a tribute to California songwriters. I am unfamiliar with some of the songwriters - Kate Wolf, Kevin Blackie Farrell, Richard Berry, Jim Ringer. Conversely, everybody knows the others – Merle Haggard, Jerry Garcia, John Fogerty, Jackson Browne, Tom Waits, and Brian Wilson. He also gives Los Lobos a shout. Wait! A Beach Boys song? Yes, Surfer Girl. It has to be heard to be believed. Dave Alvin the musicologist gives us a California history lesson in song.
I put the two albums with Phil Alvin and the one album with Jimmie Dale Gilmore in the Musicologist/Song Interpreter box
Just when I thought I’d heard all of Dave Alvin there was to hear, along came The Third Mind. He read a biography of Miles Davis that detailed how he made such works like Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson. Miles gathered musicians in a studio, picked a key and a groove then had the musicians play for days while he recorded the whole thing. Once recorded, Miles and producer Teo Macero would edit the music into compositions. Alvin had the same idea. He said “I had a crazy idea and was looking for musicians who perhaps didn’t think it was so insane.” Alvin had a safety net that Miles Davis didn’t have [or need]. He picked music that was associated with the 1960s underground from the likes of Michael Bloomfield, Fred Neil, Alice Coltrane, and Roky Erikson. The musicians didn’t rehearse. They decided on a key and started recording to see what happened. They sat in a circle, watched and listened to what each other played, and improvised, as much as one can within the confines of known songs. Hearing an improvised 16-minute take on Bloomfield’s East West is well worth the purchase. It’s a tuneful psychedelic freakout.
In 1980, a guy named Chris Desjardins [aka Chris D.] formed a punk band in Los Angeles [The Flesh Eaters]. This band had three members of The Blasters [Dave Alvin, drummer Bill Bateman, and sax player Steve Berlin] and two guys from X [bassist John Doe and percussionist D.J. Bonebrake]. They recorded one album - A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die [1981]. Band members came and went with regularity. Chris D. recorded six more Flesh Eaters albums between then and 2004. In 2007, the ”all-star” lineup reformed and played shows whenever schedules allowed. They went back into the studio in 2019 and created I Used to Be Pretty. Of the album’s eleven songs, there are two new songs, three covers, and the rest are new recordings of songs from the previous six albums. Alvin gets to be just the guitar player here. Alvin gets to rip your face off on Peter Green’s The Green Manalishi, and the 13-minute finale Ghost Cave Lament reminds me of those really long Doors songs like The End and When the Music’s Over.
What about that Blasters music that I ignored forty years ago? In 2002 Rhino Records compiled Testament: The Complete Slash Recordings. I didn’t feel like paying $55 for the set on Amazon, but I found two live recordings from the reunited original band - Trouble Bound [2002] and The Blasters Live: Going Home [2004]. Of the 33 songs between the two albums, only four of them appear on both. This is a comprehensive enough overview of the Blasters, and it’s live [even better].
Here's my recommended playlist:
The Green Manalishi [The Flesh Eaters, I Used to Be Pretty – 2019]
Downey to Lubbock [Dave Alvin & Jimmie
Dale Gilmore, Downey to Lubbock – 2018]
World's in a Bad Condition [Dave Alvin
& Phil Alvin, Lost Time – 2015]
Mister Kicks [Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin, Lost
Time – 2015]
Silverlake [Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale
Gilmore, Downey to Lubbock – 2018]
Harlan County Line [Eleven Eleven –
2011]
Johnny Ace Is Dead [Eleven Eleven –
2011]
Dirty Nightgown [Eleven Eleven –
2011]
Who's Been Here [From an Old Guitar –
2020]
Highway 61 Revisited [From an Old Guitar
– 2020]
Sonora's Death Row [West of the West
– 2006]
Murrietta's Head [Eleven Eleven –
2011]
Mobile Blue [From an Old Guitar –
2020]
Signal Hill Blues [Eleven Eleven –
2011]
Downey Girl [Dave Alvin & the
Guilty Women – 2009]
Marie Marie [Dave Alvin & the
Guilty Women – 2009]
Beautiful City 'Cross the River [From an
Old Guitar – 2020]
Never Trust a Woman [Eleven Eleven –
2011]
On the Way Downtown [From an Old Guitar –
2020]
Southern Flood Blues [Dave Alvin & Phil
Alvin, Common Ground – 2014]
Wee Baby Blues [Dave Alvin & Phil
Alvin, Lost Time – 2015]
Get Together [Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale
Gilmore, Downey to Lubbock – 2018]
Dry River [Blue Blvd. – 1991]
Andersonville [Blue Blvd. – 1991]
Thirty Dollar Room [Museum of Heart
– 1993]
As She Slowly Turns to Leave [Museum of
Heart – 1993]
Stranger in Town [Museum of Heart –
1993]
King of California [King of California
– 1994]
Fourth of July [King of California –
1994]
Border Radio [King of California –
1994]
East Texas Blues [King of California
– 1994]
Bus Station [King of California –
1994]
Mother Earth [King of California –
1994]
Blackjack David [Blackjack David - 1998]
California Snow [Blackjack David - 1998]
Evening Blues [Blackjack David - 1998]
1968 [Blackjack David - 1998]
Shenandoah [Public Domain: Songs From
The Wild Land – 2000]
Out in California [The Best of the Hightone
Years – 2008]
Ashgrove [Ashgrove – 2004]
Rio Grande [Ashgrove – 2004]
Black Sky [Ashgrove – 2004]
Black Haired Girl [Ashgrove – 2004]
Loser [West of the West – 2006]
Kern River [West of the West – 2006]
East West [The Third Mind, 2020]
Ghost Cave Lament [The Flesh Eaters, I Used to Be Pretty – 2019]
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