Dave Alvin shuns labels, lives for live gigs
By John Schacht
Dave Alvin really doesn’t give a damn what they call his music. The way he sees it, he’s just been upholding a long-standing tradition, first as a member of the punkabilly happy Blasters, and then as a solo artist over the two decades since their demise.“I consider myself basically a blues guy because I’m just writing my blues,” Alvin says by phone from his home in Southern California. “But if I want to write a country song, fine, I don’t want to be judged. Or if I want to write a song that sounds like a 19th century folk song, fine, just write the damn song, and labels be damned. And the Americana thing allows you a bit of that freedom, so I don’t mind that term because it’s a pretty wide net, and it goes from one generational end to the other.”
Alvin concedes that “alt.country” certainly didn’t hurt his career, and may have even introduced a few more people to his music. But for him, like so many others including its alleged 90s’ founders, alternative country “probably started with the Byrds.” But being pigeonholed doesn’t interest Alvin.
“For me, it’s a little problematic, because I’m a songwriter, and songwriters have to keep their ears open to every possibility,” he says.
And a tour through his recorded past reveals a near compendium of American musical history. Influenced both by the Bakersfield country swing sound and the rhythm & blues of personal mentors like Lee Allen and T-Bone Walker, the Blasters’ hybrid also included a healthy dose of X-like punk — not all that surprising since they shared so many dates in the early 80s. When Alvin left his brother Phil and the other members of the Blasters to pursue his solo career (and after a brief stint in X), he was free to incorporate any song styles he wanted.
“I found that if I felt like writing a polka that morning, I could,” he says. “I didn’t have to think, “oh, the band won’t play it.’ Because I threw away a lot of songs that I wrote during the Blasters’ era that were probably good songs.”
Thankfully, Alvin rebounded, putting out a string of solo records that, while never wildly successful, earned him a diehard following and critical acclaim. He wasn’t exactly prolific, but it wasn’t for lack of talent. For Alvin, the records have been means to one end — touring.
“For me, everything is playing live, I mean everything,” he says, though the thrill of an itinerant lifestyle is not the draw. “The glamour part of truckstops and gas stations and motel rooms and fast food — I got over that years ago, but it’s still the live gig, so you put up with this other jazz.”
He cautions that he’s not complaining — “it’s weird, but not rough, because digging a ditch is rough” — but concedes that life on the road can be wearing.
“What happens to a lot of people who live on the road, whether they’re musicians or traveling salesman or whatever, you start to notice that time is different,” he says. “You start feeling alienated in some ways, and dislocated.”
So Alvin has tried to cut back on the touring in the last year or so. His father succumbed recently after a long illness, and Alvin retreated, in some respects, to take stock. His previous studio recording, 2000’s Grammy-winning collection of folk songs, Public Domain, helped him come to grips with his father’s illness; his latest, and his first for Yep Roc, Ashgrove, was a means of dealing with his father’s passing.
“Public Domain was a collection of survival songs, because to me that’s what a lot of traditional folk music was,” he says, “and Ashgrove is survival songs I wrote for myself. All of the songs are about, “How do you survive?’ “How do you live your life?’ “What’s a good life?’ “What’s a bad life?’
“The death of anyone can lead you into dark places.”
On the other hand, the years after his father died have also been a time of renewal and reaffirmation. Coinciding with Rhino’s reissue of the entire Blasters’ out-of-print Warner Brothers’ catalogue, Dave and his brother Phil put aside their differences long enough to put together a brief West coast reunion tour with all of the original band members. To their surprise, the shows were so warmly received that the group decided to add more dates across the country. While he admits to being “stunned” at the positive reaction from fans, there was something even more surprising to Alvin: the quality of music from the reformed Blasters.
“Instead of being worse, or instead of being lazy or instead of being fuzzy, the band was great!” he exclaims. “Damn, if we would have been this good back then maybe we’d all be in mansions and limousines — or at least we’d be on VH1 discussing our drug problems that we had to overcome.”
The group was able to capitalize on the reunion gigs with two live records and a DVD of the last performance of the reunited Blasters (though they recently played a one-off gig at a blues festival as a favor to the organizer and as a fill-in and tribute to Bo Diddley, whose illness left an open slot atop the bill). But Alvin’s attention is now turned toward his own touring band, The Guilty Men, which, after a set lineup for several years, recently incorporated new blood.
In particular, guitarist Chris Miller (Wayne Hancock, Dale Watson, Lavay Smith) took the seat formerly held by long-time Guilty Man Rick Shea, now retired from the road. That change has altered the band’s internal dynamic to the degree that Alvin’s love of the live gig has become, if anything, even more of “an addiction” since going out on the road for the first time as a new unit with the release of Ashgrove in June.
Alvin’s live persona retains much of the intensity he began with in the Blasters (an intoxicating live band if there ever was one). The distance between the material and Alvin’s emotions is virtually non-existent. (Ever the perfectionist, Alvin broke a bone in his hand during his last Charlotte gig in 2001 when his amplifier wouldn’t co-operate without a little…manual prodding.)
“One of my drawbacks as a performer is that my eyes are closed a lot when I’m on stage,” he says. “But it’s because I’m going back to where I wrote the song, and I’m picturing driving on the freeway late at night writing the song in my head so that I can go back to that place and conjure up some kind of immediacy.”
Alvin is so happy with the band’s new sound that, for the first time since the Blasters, he’s strongly considering entering the studio next time with songs written specifically for a full band. But, older and wiser since those early rough-and-tumble days with the Blasters, Alvin now knows that the song — no matter what genre you care to lump it in — is still King.
“To me the song still dictates things,” he says. “What the song wants, the song gets. But right now this band is so good, there have been some nights in the last two-and-a-half months that have just been unbelievable. I stand back and go, “they let me play with them? I’m not good enough to be in this band.'”
Dave Alvin and The Guilty Men play The Visulite Theatre Saturday at 9pm; doors open at 8pm and Amy Farris opens. Tickets are $12 in advance at $15 on the day of the show, available through www.visulite.com or by calling 704-358-9299.
Tift Merritt Finds Her Voice By Expanding Repetoire
By Timothy C. David
In the halcyon days of the early 1970s, the music of Carole King and Joni Mitchell was regularly played across radio and social lines, often going platinum-plus in the process. Today, thanks to artists like Lucinda Williams and Alicia Keys and Norah Jones, female singer-songwriters are being drawn to the spotlight like never before. Williams, a blend of rock and country/blues influences, enjoys a hardcore following of country and “alt.country” fans, as well as the odd NPR listener looking for something new. Keys counts hip/hop and soul fans among her listenership, as well as a VH1-style boomer audience. Multiple Grammy-winner Jones? She damn near invented an audience. Who knew there were five million smoky jazz/lounge music fans out there, a whole million of which would buy her new album in the first week of its release? (The record, Feels Like Home, is the strongest out-of-the-box sales hit since 2001.)
Artists and labels in the nebulous genre “alt.country” — always unsure of what to call their music in the first place — have taken notice. Thanks to a full-scale media blitz, Canada’s Kathleen Edwards, heretofore known as an attractive, if under-known twanger with potential, found herself named by Rolling Stone magazine as performer to watch. She appeared twice on the Late Show with David Letterman, on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, CNN, and even Last Call with Carson Daly. Time claimed her deserving of “a place at the table, somewhere between Lucinda Williams and Sheryl Crow.” Her album? Maybe sold 40,000 units (another 40,000 found their way into the hands of the press, it seems).
The Houston-born, NC-bred Tift Merritt — in town on Wednesday, September 22, at The Visulite Theatre — hopes her music lands her someplace in the middle. Having already appeared on Letterman and in the pages of Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly on the strength of her excellent debut, Bramble Rose, the Lost Highway Records promotional blitz appears to be in full-on media sack-mode once again, this time for her self-proclaimed new “rock and soul” record, Tambourine. Produced by George Drakoulias (Black Crowes), the album hosts a slew of big-name contributors, including Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, Don Heffington (Lone Justice), Maria McKee, Gary Louris (Jayhawks), and steel guitarist Robert Randolph.
As a record, it has something for everybody, which is probably the whole point. The album’s opener, “Stray Paper,” could be a Sheryl Crow outtake (were it that Crow could sing as well as Merritt). “Laid A Highway” is classic rollicking country/soul, and “Shadow In the Way”, “Good Hearted Man” and “I Am Your Tambourine” (“I am your tambourine/ shake me with your love tonight) are third-generation booty-shakers of the first order.
Yes, something for everybody: fans, radio stations, VH1, NPR. How does it hold up as a cohesive adult album? Rather nicely, easily topping Edwards’ Failer as an artistic statement, even as some tracks remind you that Merritt, 27 years old, probably first heard these records from her parents’ record collection as a toddler. Some of the more Stax-leaning material seems a tad forced, but the vocals and songwriting show that Merritt has enough knowledge of her own soul to one day bring it off.
There’s still enough country-leaning material to please her “alt” fans, but then again, soul music has always been an under-appreciated part of that genre. Merritt drops names like Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, and Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett when asked about this album’s musical genesis. “I think music is about the pursuit of joy, even the sad songs,” Merritt says in her bio, a sentiment that is particularly applicable to soul and country music. “It feels really great to get those feelings out, and I wanted this record to reflect that celebration.”
Like Edwards and Kasey Chambers, Merritt’s level of success will be closely monitored by the suits — a little water-chumming chart success, and you may soon see major label sharks circling around every moderately attractive female songwriter with an Ovation acoustic.
Is such thinking sexist? Perhaps. But then again, Carole King and Joni Mitchell attracted attention for their looks, too, but made their name through their work, something that all the Michelle Branchs of the world have yet to achieve. Young or not, Merritt and her young compatriots already have a step up: a knowledge of musical history and a track record in a genre — however nebulous — that rewards those willing to take chances.
It’s something called inner beauty, and given a chance and a place to grow, it’ll win out every time.
Tift Merritt will play The Visulite Theatre on Wednesday, September 22, at 8pm. Tickets are $12 in advance and $14 the day of the show, available by going to www.visulite.com or by calling 704-358-9299.
This article appears in Sep 22-28, 2004.
