WEST OF THE WEST
Dave Alvin
Dave Alvin is as well-known for songs recorded by Dwight Yoakam ("Long White Cadillac") and his former group the Blasters ("Border Radio," "Marie Marie") as for his own compositions. But this time around, the man who once recorded an album called "King of California" stakes his claim to the title with the jewels of other California musicians.
Alvin confidently interprets the songs, as a minute's listening to "Redneck Friend" will prove. Jackson Browne made it light and bouncy; Alvin smokes up the sunny skies and slows the tempo to a swinging two-step beat. When Browne sang "Honey, let me introduce you to my redneck friend," his amiable tenor set him apart from his buddy; when Alvin growls it, he's talking about a partner in mayhem.
The songs offer fine storytelling, and Alvin finds where his sensibilities and theirs intersect. Their visions of California -- the lonely "Kern River" where Merle Haggard lost his best friend and now "may drown in still waters"; Kate Wolf's land of brown hills "Here in California" -- become his visions. His sonorous voice, his flame-edged electric licks, the work of an array of impressive sidemen, and the production of fellow guitar master Greg Leisz lend distinction to every track, from Jim Ringer's delicate country waltz "Tramps and Hawkers" to Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter's brooding "Loser" (which couldn't sound less like a Dead song). The one song Alvin co-wrote (with Tom Russell), "Between the Cracks," juxtaposes an outlaw and the woman he left behind with thrilling shifts from fireside lament to cantina dance. And although there's wit throughout this album, only Brian Wilson's "Surfer Girl" demands a reality check: As a ragged chorus chimes in, is that a tongue in a cheek we hear clicking?
-- Pamela Murray Winters
Washington PostSunday, June 4, 2006; Page N07
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