10192 - DAVE ALVIN AND PHIL ALVIN - LOST TIME (2015)
DAVE ALVIN AND PHIL ALVIN
''LOST TIME''
SEPTEMBER 18 2015
43:46
1 Mister Kicks (Oscar Brown, Jr.) 03:41
2 World's In A Bad Condition 04:25
3 Cherry Red Blues (Pete Johnson, Joe Turner) 03:30
4 Rattlesnakin' Daddy 04:08
5 Hide And Seek (Ethel Byrd, Paul Winley) 02:34
6 Papa' On The House Top (Leroy Carr) 02:49
7 In New Orleans (Rising Sun Blues) (Jack Lomax) 03:13
8 Please Please Please (James Brown, Johnny Terry) 02:41
9 Sit Down Baby (Willie Dixon) 04:22
10 Wee Baby Blues (Pete Johnson, Joe Turner) 05:17
11 Feeling Happy (Joe Turner) 03:13
12 You See My Saviour (Reverend Thomas A. Dorsey) 03:47
Dave Alvin/Arranger, Guitar, Guitar (12 String), Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), National Steel Guitar, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Phil Alvin/Arranger, Guitar (Acoustic), Harmonica, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Brad Fordham/Bass Guitar, Bass (Acoustic), Vocals (Background)
Bob Glaub/Bass Guitar
Don Heffington/Drums, Percussion
Chris Miller/Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Slide Guitar
Lisa Pankratz/Drums, Percussion, Vocals (Background)
Wyman Reese/Piano
Gene Taylor/Piano
David Witham/Organ, Piano
**********
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
It took a brush with death to get Dave and Phil Alvin back on good enough terms to make music together again, and after reuniting in the studio for 2014's Common Ground: Dave & Phil Alvin Play and Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy, the siblings thankfully didn't wait until one of them ended up in the emergency room to give it another try. Lost Time is another set of vintage blues tunes, but while Common Ground was an acoustic set that focused on the songbook of blues legend Broonzy, the Alvins mix it up on Lost Time, playing both electric and acoustic numbers and drawing inspiration from a variety of artists and songwriters, though rollicking jump blues master Big Joe Turner gets special attention here, with Dave and Phil tackling three of his compositions. Dave's raucous guitar lines give their Turner interpretations a feel that's different than the originals, but Dave and the band show plenty of love for the joyous, rolling boogie of Turner's signature sound, and Phil's big, bold voice is the perfect instrument for tunes like "Feeling Happy" and "Cherry Red Blues." If Phil is the star singer in the Alvin family, Dave shows he can give sly, streetwise readings to tunes like "Rattlesnakin' Daddy" and "Sit Down, Baby," and his vocals help give this album a looser, more playful sound than Common Ground. Dave and Phil seem a little less concerned with honoring the legacy of a great artist (even if they had fun doing so) than they are in jamming on tunes they love and kicking up some dust in the studio, and Lost Time does just that. Dave and Phil Alvin sing and play this music direct from the heart, whether they're wailing on an early James Brown side or getting right with the Lord on a classic spiritual from Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey, and as always they consistently hit the sweet spot between technique and passion. If Dave and Phil Alvin want to crank out an album like Lost Time every year until the sun finally sets on them, no one who loves blues and roots music would have any room to complain.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG/DAVE ALVIN
Mark Deming
Dave Alvin helped to kick-start the American roots rock scene in the early '80s with the band the Blasters, and has since gone on to a career as a solo performer, songwriter, producer, and sideman that's been as well respected as it is eclectic. Born in Downey, California in 1955, Alvin was raised by a family of music fans, and as teenagers Dave and his older brother Phil immersed themselves in blues, rockabilly, and vintage country sounds, collecting rare records and attending nightclub performances by the likes of T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner, and Lee Allen. Like many fans, the Alvin brothers wanted to play music influenced by the sounds they loved, and in 1979 they formed the Blasters with fellow Downey residents Bill Bateman and John Bazz. Combining the revved-up energy of punk rock with an enthusiastic embrace of classic American sounds, the Blasters became a sensation in Los Angeles and won an enthusiastic cult following across the United States and Europe. However, the Blasters were unable to translate their critical respect and enthusiastic fan base into mainstream success, and in 1986 Dave left the band. Phil Alvin continued to front various lineups of the Blasters, and in 2002 Dave joined forces with Phil, Bill Bateman, and John Bazz for a short series of Blasters reunion shows.
While playing with the Blasters, Alvin had already displayed a broad range of enthusiasms with two side projects, Chris D.'s literate goth-punk collective the Flesh Eaters and the Knitters, an acoustic ensemble in which Alvin performed vintage country and folk numbers with John Doe and Exene Cervenka of X. Shortly after leaving the Blasters, Alvin joined X as lead guitarist after the departure of Billy Zoom; however, Alvin amicably left the group to work on a solo project shortly after the recording sessions for their album See How We Are. Alvin's first solo album, entitled Romeo's Escape in the United States and Every Night About This Time in England, added a purer country influence along with a larger side portion of the blues; while the album was critically well received, it didn't fare well in the marketplace, and Alvin was dropped by his American record label, Columbia. Alvin suffered health problems that sidelined him for a while, except for a wild tour with friends Mojo Nixon and Country Dick Montana as the Pleasure Barons, which was described as "a Las Vegas revue from acts who aren't going to be asked to play Vegas." (A live album was released of a second Pleasure Barons tour in 1993.)
In 1989, Dwight Yoakam scored a hit on the country charts with Alvin's song "Long White Cadillac," and Alvin used the royalties to start work on his second solo set, Blue Blvd. Released by the California-based roots-music label Hightone Records, Blue Blvd received enthusiastic reviews and sold well enough to reestablish Alvin as a significant artist in the roots rock scene. After releasing Museum of Heart in 1993, Alvin began to turn his attention to acoustic music with 1994's King of California, and over the next several years Alvin moved back and forth between hard-edged roots rock and more introspective acoustic material that still honored his influences (and allowed him to display a greater range as a vocalist). In 2000, Alvin recorded a collection of traditional folk and blues classics, Public Domain: Songs from the Wild Land, which earned him a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. In 2004, Alvin signed with the upstart roots rock label Yep Roc Records, which released his album Ashgrove, a low-key but hard-edged set of blues and rock. It was followed in 2006 by West of the West and a year later by Live from Austin TX (a performance on Austin City Limits from 1999).
He changed his approach a bit with Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, which was issued by Yep Roc in 2009, by recording with five women, and it seemed to revitalize him. Eleven Eleven, Alvin's first solo studio album of original material in some seven years, appeared in 2011, again on Yep Roc. Eleven Eleven included a duet with Phil Alvin on the tune "What's Up with Your Brother?," and in 2014 Dave and Phil recorded a full album together for the first time since Dave left the Blasters; Common Ground: Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin Play and Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy was a celebration of one of their first and strongest musical influences that found them both in strong form. The Alvin brothers supported Common Ground with a concert tour, and in 2015 Dave and Phil returned with a lively set of electric blues, Lost Time.
When not busy recording his own music, Alvin has also worked as a producer for several other roots-oriented acts, including Tom Russell, the Derailers, and Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, and he has collaborated with rockabilly legend Sonny Burgess. As a sideman, Alvin has recorded sessions with the likes of Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Little Milton, Katy Moffatt, and Syd Straw.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG/PHIL ALVIN
Jason Ankeny
As the big-voiced frontman of the Blasters during the early '80s, singer/guitarist Phil Alvin spearheaded the underground's new embrace of American music traditions ranging from blues to rockabilly to country, predating the roots rock movement that bloomed in the years to follow. Born March 6, 1953, in Los Angeles, Alvin and his younger brother Dave were raised on the music of Elvis Presley, T-Bone Walker, and Big Joe Turner; together they formed the Blasters in 1979, borrowing the name from Jimmy McCracklin's Blues Blasters.
Their debut LP, 1980's American Music, created a major buzz among insiders for its gritty, rootsy sound, and their self-titled 1981 follow-up even cracked the Top 40. However, Dave Alvin left the Blasters in 1985, and Phil returned to grad school to pursue his master's degree in mathematics and artificial intelligence. (He later earned his Ph.D. from UCLA.) Alvin resurfaced in 1986 with his solo debut, Un "Sung" Stories, which featured cameos by everyone from Sun Ra & His Arkestra to the Dirty Dozen Brass Band; he reconvened the Blasters a short time later, and the group continued with a revolving lineup into the following decade. A second solo effort, County Fair 2000, appeared in 1994, and featured members of the Alvin side project the Faultline Syncopators, a traditional jazz combo. After years of live work with a variety of different guitarists, the Blasters struck a deal with Private Music to cut new material, but for a variety of reasons, the 1997 album At Home was never released.
In 2002, Dave and Phil Alvin reunited the 1980 edition of the Blasters for a handful of shows, which stretched into several months of touring due to demand from their fans; the reunion produced two live albums, Trouble Bound and The Blasters Live: Going Home. In 2004, Phil Alvin finally released a new Blasters album, 4-11-44, which featured Phil on lead vocals, Keith Wyatt on guitar, John Bazz on bass, and Jerry Angel on drums. While the Blasters were still Phil's band, he and his brother Dave briefly reunited in the studio to sing a duet on "What's Up with Your Brother?," a track on Dave's 2011 album Eleven Eleven. Bill Bateman replaced Jerry Angel on drums for the next Blasters release, 2012's Fun on a Saturday Night, but a European tour in support of the release was scuttled when Phil, who had been fighting a viral infection with antibiotics months earlier, was hospitalized in Spain when he suffered severe breathing difficulties. He fully recovered following an emergency tracheotomy, and in 2013 Phil and Dave began work on their first album together since Dave left the Blasters. A spirited tribute to one of their greatest influences, Common Ground: Dave & Phil Alvin Play & Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy was released in the summer of 2014. The Alvin brothers supported Common Ground with a concert tour, and in 2015 Dave and Phil returned with a lively set of electric blues, Lost Time.
**********
BIOGRAPHY DAVE ALVIN/WIKIPEDIA
BIOGRAPHY PHIL ALVIN/WIKIPEDIA
**********
WEBSITE DAVE ALVIN
**********
TO THE TOP
**********
''LOST TIME''
SEPTEMBER 18 2015
43:46
1 Mister Kicks (Oscar Brown, Jr.) 03:41
2 World's In A Bad Condition 04:25
3 Cherry Red Blues (Pete Johnson, Joe Turner) 03:30
4 Rattlesnakin' Daddy 04:08
5 Hide And Seek (Ethel Byrd, Paul Winley) 02:34
6 Papa' On The House Top (Leroy Carr) 02:49
7 In New Orleans (Rising Sun Blues) (Jack Lomax) 03:13
8 Please Please Please (James Brown, Johnny Terry) 02:41
9 Sit Down Baby (Willie Dixon) 04:22
10 Wee Baby Blues (Pete Johnson, Joe Turner) 05:17
11 Feeling Happy (Joe Turner) 03:13
12 You See My Saviour (Reverend Thomas A. Dorsey) 03:47
Dave Alvin/Arranger, Guitar, Guitar (12 String), Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), National Steel Guitar, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Phil Alvin/Arranger, Guitar (Acoustic), Harmonica, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Brad Fordham/Bass Guitar, Bass (Acoustic), Vocals (Background)
Bob Glaub/Bass Guitar
Don Heffington/Drums, Percussion
Chris Miller/Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Slide Guitar
Lisa Pankratz/Drums, Percussion, Vocals (Background)
Wyman Reese/Piano
Gene Taylor/Piano
David Witham/Organ, Piano
**********
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
It took a brush with death to get Dave and Phil Alvin back on good enough terms to make music together again, and after reuniting in the studio for 2014's Common Ground: Dave & Phil Alvin Play and Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy, the siblings thankfully didn't wait until one of them ended up in the emergency room to give it another try. Lost Time is another set of vintage blues tunes, but while Common Ground was an acoustic set that focused on the songbook of blues legend Broonzy, the Alvins mix it up on Lost Time, playing both electric and acoustic numbers and drawing inspiration from a variety of artists and songwriters, though rollicking jump blues master Big Joe Turner gets special attention here, with Dave and Phil tackling three of his compositions. Dave's raucous guitar lines give their Turner interpretations a feel that's different than the originals, but Dave and the band show plenty of love for the joyous, rolling boogie of Turner's signature sound, and Phil's big, bold voice is the perfect instrument for tunes like "Feeling Happy" and "Cherry Red Blues." If Phil is the star singer in the Alvin family, Dave shows he can give sly, streetwise readings to tunes like "Rattlesnakin' Daddy" and "Sit Down, Baby," and his vocals help give this album a looser, more playful sound than Common Ground. Dave and Phil seem a little less concerned with honoring the legacy of a great artist (even if they had fun doing so) than they are in jamming on tunes they love and kicking up some dust in the studio, and Lost Time does just that. Dave and Phil Alvin sing and play this music direct from the heart, whether they're wailing on an early James Brown side or getting right with the Lord on a classic spiritual from Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey, and as always they consistently hit the sweet spot between technique and passion. If Dave and Phil Alvin want to crank out an album like Lost Time every year until the sun finally sets on them, no one who loves blues and roots music would have any room to complain.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG/DAVE ALVIN
Mark Deming
Dave Alvin helped to kick-start the American roots rock scene in the early '80s with the band the Blasters, and has since gone on to a career as a solo performer, songwriter, producer, and sideman that's been as well respected as it is eclectic. Born in Downey, California in 1955, Alvin was raised by a family of music fans, and as teenagers Dave and his older brother Phil immersed themselves in blues, rockabilly, and vintage country sounds, collecting rare records and attending nightclub performances by the likes of T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner, and Lee Allen. Like many fans, the Alvin brothers wanted to play music influenced by the sounds they loved, and in 1979 they formed the Blasters with fellow Downey residents Bill Bateman and John Bazz. Combining the revved-up energy of punk rock with an enthusiastic embrace of classic American sounds, the Blasters became a sensation in Los Angeles and won an enthusiastic cult following across the United States and Europe. However, the Blasters were unable to translate their critical respect and enthusiastic fan base into mainstream success, and in 1986 Dave left the band. Phil Alvin continued to front various lineups of the Blasters, and in 2002 Dave joined forces with Phil, Bill Bateman, and John Bazz for a short series of Blasters reunion shows.
While playing with the Blasters, Alvin had already displayed a broad range of enthusiasms with two side projects, Chris D.'s literate goth-punk collective the Flesh Eaters and the Knitters, an acoustic ensemble in which Alvin performed vintage country and folk numbers with John Doe and Exene Cervenka of X. Shortly after leaving the Blasters, Alvin joined X as lead guitarist after the departure of Billy Zoom; however, Alvin amicably left the group to work on a solo project shortly after the recording sessions for their album See How We Are. Alvin's first solo album, entitled Romeo's Escape in the United States and Every Night About This Time in England, added a purer country influence along with a larger side portion of the blues; while the album was critically well received, it didn't fare well in the marketplace, and Alvin was dropped by his American record label, Columbia. Alvin suffered health problems that sidelined him for a while, except for a wild tour with friends Mojo Nixon and Country Dick Montana as the Pleasure Barons, which was described as "a Las Vegas revue from acts who aren't going to be asked to play Vegas." (A live album was released of a second Pleasure Barons tour in 1993.)
In 1989, Dwight Yoakam scored a hit on the country charts with Alvin's song "Long White Cadillac," and Alvin used the royalties to start work on his second solo set, Blue Blvd. Released by the California-based roots-music label Hightone Records, Blue Blvd received enthusiastic reviews and sold well enough to reestablish Alvin as a significant artist in the roots rock scene. After releasing Museum of Heart in 1993, Alvin began to turn his attention to acoustic music with 1994's King of California, and over the next several years Alvin moved back and forth between hard-edged roots rock and more introspective acoustic material that still honored his influences (and allowed him to display a greater range as a vocalist). In 2000, Alvin recorded a collection of traditional folk and blues classics, Public Domain: Songs from the Wild Land, which earned him a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. In 2004, Alvin signed with the upstart roots rock label Yep Roc Records, which released his album Ashgrove, a low-key but hard-edged set of blues and rock. It was followed in 2006 by West of the West and a year later by Live from Austin TX (a performance on Austin City Limits from 1999).
He changed his approach a bit with Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, which was issued by Yep Roc in 2009, by recording with five women, and it seemed to revitalize him. Eleven Eleven, Alvin's first solo studio album of original material in some seven years, appeared in 2011, again on Yep Roc. Eleven Eleven included a duet with Phil Alvin on the tune "What's Up with Your Brother?," and in 2014 Dave and Phil recorded a full album together for the first time since Dave left the Blasters; Common Ground: Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin Play and Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy was a celebration of one of their first and strongest musical influences that found them both in strong form. The Alvin brothers supported Common Ground with a concert tour, and in 2015 Dave and Phil returned with a lively set of electric blues, Lost Time.
When not busy recording his own music, Alvin has also worked as a producer for several other roots-oriented acts, including Tom Russell, the Derailers, and Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, and he has collaborated with rockabilly legend Sonny Burgess. As a sideman, Alvin has recorded sessions with the likes of Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Little Milton, Katy Moffatt, and Syd Straw.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG/PHIL ALVIN
Jason Ankeny
As the big-voiced frontman of the Blasters during the early '80s, singer/guitarist Phil Alvin spearheaded the underground's new embrace of American music traditions ranging from blues to rockabilly to country, predating the roots rock movement that bloomed in the years to follow. Born March 6, 1953, in Los Angeles, Alvin and his younger brother Dave were raised on the music of Elvis Presley, T-Bone Walker, and Big Joe Turner; together they formed the Blasters in 1979, borrowing the name from Jimmy McCracklin's Blues Blasters.
Their debut LP, 1980's American Music, created a major buzz among insiders for its gritty, rootsy sound, and their self-titled 1981 follow-up even cracked the Top 40. However, Dave Alvin left the Blasters in 1985, and Phil returned to grad school to pursue his master's degree in mathematics and artificial intelligence. (He later earned his Ph.D. from UCLA.) Alvin resurfaced in 1986 with his solo debut, Un "Sung" Stories, which featured cameos by everyone from Sun Ra & His Arkestra to the Dirty Dozen Brass Band; he reconvened the Blasters a short time later, and the group continued with a revolving lineup into the following decade. A second solo effort, County Fair 2000, appeared in 1994, and featured members of the Alvin side project the Faultline Syncopators, a traditional jazz combo. After years of live work with a variety of different guitarists, the Blasters struck a deal with Private Music to cut new material, but for a variety of reasons, the 1997 album At Home was never released.
In 2002, Dave and Phil Alvin reunited the 1980 edition of the Blasters for a handful of shows, which stretched into several months of touring due to demand from their fans; the reunion produced two live albums, Trouble Bound and The Blasters Live: Going Home. In 2004, Phil Alvin finally released a new Blasters album, 4-11-44, which featured Phil on lead vocals, Keith Wyatt on guitar, John Bazz on bass, and Jerry Angel on drums. While the Blasters were still Phil's band, he and his brother Dave briefly reunited in the studio to sing a duet on "What's Up with Your Brother?," a track on Dave's 2011 album Eleven Eleven. Bill Bateman replaced Jerry Angel on drums for the next Blasters release, 2012's Fun on a Saturday Night, but a European tour in support of the release was scuttled when Phil, who had been fighting a viral infection with antibiotics months earlier, was hospitalized in Spain when he suffered severe breathing difficulties. He fully recovered following an emergency tracheotomy, and in 2013 Phil and Dave began work on their first album together since Dave left the Blasters. A spirited tribute to one of their greatest influences, Common Ground: Dave & Phil Alvin Play & Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy was released in the summer of 2014. The Alvin brothers supported Common Ground with a concert tour, and in 2015 Dave and Phil returned with a lively set of electric blues, Lost Time.
**********
BIOGRAPHY DAVE ALVIN/WIKIPEDIA
BIOGRAPHY PHIL ALVIN/WIKIPEDIA
**********
WEBSITE DAVE ALVIN
**********
TO THE TOP
**********