DAVE ALVIN’S TALES ARE HOT OFF THE GUITAR
By Barry Gilbert
Of the Post-Dispatch
August 12, 2004
|
|
Dave Alvin "Ashgrove" Yep Roc Records |
Troubador Dave Alvin's seventh solo studio CD since splitting with
brother Phil and the Blasters in the mid-'80s is a return to a harder, more
electric sound and is a tribute to the famous Los Angeles blues club of the
title:
"Well
when I was a young boy/I used to slip away/Down to the Ashgrove/To hear the old
blues men play/There was Big Joe and Lightnin'/And Reverend Gary, too/Well I'd
sit and stare and dream/Of doin' what they could do."
Alvin,
a fiery guitarist in concert, is doin' what they did. He has become one of our
finest songwriters, straddling genres and telling stories of the folks who
built, live in and cope with life in America.
Alvin
adopts the persona of "Everett Reuss," a young explorer who
disappeared forever in the Escalante badlands of Utah in 1934 "cause I
know God is here in the canyons."
He also
introduces us to a "Black Haired Girl" who runs the cash register at
a gas station on an itchy, edgy, rainy night; a "Sinful Daughter"; a
"Man in the Bed"; and a guy who is dangerously "Out of
Control."
Two
familiar songs appear here as well: a radically reworked version of "Rio
Grande," co-written with and recorded first by Tom Russell; and a slower,
less-country "Somewhere in Time," co-written and recorded with Los
Lobos on their "The Ride" CD.
Alvin
also gives us a second wonderful song about radio and radios, after his
bittersweet "Border Radio" (1987). "Nine Volt Heart,"
written with Rod Hodges, will make fans of '60s transistor radios mistily
nostalgic: "Plastic silver nine volt heart/You click it on and let the
music start/And the radio was his toy/The radio was his toy."