Dave Alvin and Christy McWilson, Guilt Free @ KDHX

I guess I was 15 when Scott, my best friend and idol (he was a year older and had the best beer can collection in town), showed me a record he’d just bought with his lawn mowing money: The Blasters. “I don’t know why I bought this,” he said. “It sounds like Sha Na Na.” The album cover was wild, a crazy, sweaty cartoon grimace, and I wanted to hear it. He played it for me, and I remarked that it sounded more like Elvis. Scott let me have it and I still play that album, and it always takes me back to the way rock & roll really, really felt as a kid.

Dave Alvin wasn’t the singer in the Blasters. That was his older brother Phil, but Dave played guitar and was already writing songs that are American classics. Since then Dave has moved in a more songwriterly direction, and if I often miss the rockabilly blues punk, I don’t regret the way his lyrical voice has opened up to harrowing stories like “California Snow” or mysterious portraits like “Everett Ruess.” And he’s still one of the best guitar players you’ll ever have the pleasure of being blown through the back of a club by.

So it was a coup for KDHX to have Dave Alvin and Christy McWilson (formerly of the Picketts) stop by the studio for an unscripted, live-without-a-net acoustic session on the Back Country this past Saturday. The two were in town for a Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women show at the Duck Room. That project finds Dave with a cadre of some of the finest musicians in roots music (Cindy Cashdollar, Amy Farris, Lisa Pankrantz, and Sarah Brown for starters), who also happen to be women. It also finds him having more fun than he has in years.

For the in-studio session, Alvin and McWilson turned to three covers: Kate Wolf’s “Here In California,” Moby Grape’s “805″ and Doris Day’s “Que Sera Sera.” He agreed to video but McWilson, feeling a bit underdressed, preferred the camera steer clear of her. But her voice, as you’ll hear on the videos, is a soulful clarion call.

If you like, you can also stream the audio of the whole session (including host Jeff Corbin’s interview with Dave) and check out a slide show at KDHX.org.

Posted by | August 23, 2009 | Music, Video/Film | Comment 

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