★★★★★
The traditional folk of the title track on Alvin's 1998 album might initially suggest that we're in for a more subdued and rustic experience than the former Blaster's trademark bar band country-rock. The remaining 10 tracks, however, all self-penned or co-writes, deliver us to familiar territory of thoughtful, literate ruminations on the American condition...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Retroworld have some superb reissues coming out these days including a Dick Dale double and this superb collection from Dave Alvin. Alvin was a founder member of the Blasters plus doing time in X and some sides with The Knitters, he isn?t short of experience or, on the face of this, of talent either. Between the two albums you get 24 tracks of solid and powerful California Roots/Rock...
- www.music-news.com
2012-04-19
★★★★★
Over a career spanning more than 30 years, Californian Dave Alvin has become a genuine (if somewhat undervalued) hero of the Americana scene, from his work with seminal bands the Blasters and X to a solo career that, with Eleven Eleven, now stands at 11 albums. As ever, Alvin fuses country, folk and rock'n'roll strains with ease, while his fluent, versatile guitar playing is a consistent pleasure...
- exclaim.ca
2011-10-17
★★★★★
A season two episode of the splendid Elmore Leonard-inspired crime drama Justified, currently showing in Britain on Five USA, featured Dave Alvin in his natural habitat, playing hard-edged country-rock in a beer-stained roadhouse bar. The song in question was Harlan County Line, the opening track of this, his 11th album since parting with 80s Americana favourites The Blasters...
- www.recordcollectormag.com
2011-07-18
★★★★★
On Eleven Eleven, Dave Alvin continues his transformation from journeyman musician to becoming one of the people he always idolized: the one of a kind bluesmen and storytellers, rock and rollers and poets, folk singers and road warriors whose influences he's absorbed since he was a kid growing up fast in Downey, California...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2011-07-11
★★★★★
The heart beats a little faster at the thought of The Blasters in their prime, that brief moment when they were by some distance the flat-out most exciting rock'n'roll band a lot of us have ever seen. Dave Alvin was their incendiary lead guitarist and songwriter, his vocalist brother Phil, who formed the band with Dave in the blue-collar East Los Angeles suburb of Downey, their grandstanding front man...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2011-07-11
★★★★★
There are a lot of stories about the death of Johnny Ace, the handsome and charismatic R&B singer who shot himself at the height of his career back in 1954. Some say it was Russian roulette; others, including Big Mama Thornton, who was allegedly present, say it was a gun accident. Elvis recorded Ace's posthumous hit, "Pledging My Love", and Paul Simon wrote a wonderful tribute to the man via the view of a young fan in the song "The Late Great Johnny Ace"...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-06-27
★★★★★
On 2000's Public Domain, songwriter Dave Alvin covered folk songs that, as the album's title implied, were in the public domain. Well before Springsteen, he showed how lively classic folk songs can be, and Alvin's "Shenandoah" is far lovelier and more elegant than Springsteen's. On West of the West, Alvin turns in his second cover collection, this time singing a love letter to his native California...
- www.offbeat.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Dave Alvin has a lot in common with '70s-and-'80s-era Ry Cooder: a passion for mining American roots music, fine guitar chops, and an utterly undistinguished voice. But where Cooder imbued traditional material with hispersonal glow, Alvin's just a competent journeyman. No matter how thoroughly he recasts the 15 folk and blues tunes of Public Domain (the R&B; version of "Shenandoah" is a nice idea), they don't shine.
- ew.com
2010-08-27
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