The experience of hearing From an Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Recordings for the first time is like looking at a photo album of familiar memories a friend has put together and suddenly finding that one picture; ‘I’ve never seen THIS before.’ The waves of familiarity and joy wash over you.  Dave Alvin has finally pulled the old pictures from the box in the closet and added them to the album….and they are treasures.

Recently after hearing Dave on a live broadcast, sponsored by Roots on the Rails, talk about this album, I realized this is just as magic a trip down memory lane for him as it is for all of us. 

The album opens with Link of Chain and from that first note until the last of Signal Hill Blues, there isn’t a song on here which isn’t a fond memory, even the first time you hear it.

Alvin covers Dylan in Highway 61 Revisited, a perfect refrain for Dave’s baritone voice.  Dave makes this tune truly his own, dropping the almost light-hearted, sixties Dylan version to make it a hard driving, Alvin tune.  It’s reminiscent of the tone of the release Eleven Eleven, one of my favorites. Alvin, like Dylan, is a poet so the words ring true coming from Alvin’s mouth.

Rhumba anyone?  Variations on Earl Hooker’s Guitar Rhumba featuring cuts between a guitar solo by Dave, piano by Joe Terry, steel guitar by Chris G. Miller, accordion by Chris Gaffney and harmonica by Dale Spalding will make anyone get up and dance.  The beat Steve Mugalian & Greg Boaz keeps is perfection. The whole tune is too much fun!

Perdido Street Blues, with Alvin playing a 1934 National Steel Duolian Guitar, put me in mind of sitting in an old divey bar, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The air is thick with smoke, the heat is stifling and the beers are cold….and in the corner is a small band, playing for the hell of it. The fact that this tune was penned by legendary jazz composer Lil’ Hardin Armstrong speaks to Dave’s deep love of jazz, blues and all American music.  A boogie woogie piano (played by Blasters’ alumni Gene Taylor), some cow bell and oh, that guitar, will keep your toes tapping…don’t forget to tip the band.

Krazy & Ignatz is a sweet little duo with Alvin pulling out the 1934 National again and Cindy Cashdollar playing a little dobro.  This is the music I grew up on so this “memory” was especially fond.

There are many “memories” on this album, specifically of Chris Gaffney and Amy Farris.  Gaffney is on three of the album’s tracks, including a particularly lovely vocal duet with Alvin on the Waylon Jennings’ song Amanda.

On the Way Downtown, features both Gaff’s vocals and accordion and Farris’ stunning violin.  The instrumental duet these two close out this song with was noted by Alvin in the interview I saw, with almost a tear in his eye and a definite catch in his voice.  That this has been memorialized and is now out in the universe for all of us to enjoy is a gift in itself.

Willie Dixon’s Peace is a particularly timely tune, in its call for peace in a world that has accomplished so much yet seemingly can’t get it’s shit together.  In 2020, especially in the United States, this song rings as true as any tune released this year.  It’s fascinating how history continues to repeat itself and a tune Dixon wrote in the 80s, during the twilight of his life (he passed in 1992), would still be needed as a call for justice, in the form of peace.

For anyone who’s ever lived in the LBC (or is familiar), Signal Hill Blues is particularly recognizable and a bittersweet memory of a time passed, before gentrification uprooted many of the dive bars and seedy allies that you can only find now in tiny pockets of Long Beach and Signal Hill.  A tale of two people, whose paths cross for an evening, sharing a bottle at the top of Signal Hill, the song is as much visual as it is aural. An Alvin original, his voice and guitar shine as expected. 

Covers of Marty Robbins’ Man Walks Among Us, Doug Sahm’s Dynamite Woman (who doesn’t love Sahm?) and Bo Carter’s Who’s Been Here, which features a great duet with Christy McWilson, are just examples of the joys awaiting you in this album of memories. The album has nothing but gems, and including those mentioned, you’ll get a treasure trove of sixteen tracks. 

These tunes were recorded for numerous reasons – various tribute albums, Alvin’s own albums, either solo or with one of the many bands he’s been part of over the last 30 years, or as he said, “The majority, though, were recorded for no other reason than the sheer kicks of going into a recording studio to make some joyous noise with musicians and singers that I love and admire.” 

Well, those sheer kicks created some great memories and whether you remember Dave Alvin with the Guilty Woman, the Guilty Men, the Guilty Ones, The Blasters, any other configuration of musicians or solo, you’ll know the musicians you hear on this disc and, like that photo album with the surprise photos, when you hear the “new one” the memories will be the same…sweet, joyous and treasured. 

Alvin sort of chuckled talking about this release when he noted that people are telling him this may be their favorite Dave Alvin album.  I don’t know if that’s the case for me, but it’s right up there with my favorite Alvin CDs. However, it is one of the BEST albums of 2020….so maybe that’s saying something. From an Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Recordings was released on November 20^th on Yep Roc Records. 

- Tracy Morgan