Dave Alvin

★★★★

From An Old Guitar: Rare And Unreleased Recordings YEP ROC. CD/DL/LP

A collection of largely unreleased studio recordings from 2003-2019.

SIXTEEN SONGS – acoustic and electric; covers, originals and instrumentals; roots rock, folk and blues – and not a bad one among them. If you listened to the album before reading the subtitle, you might well take it for a new recording, Alvin’s most wide-ranging, and maybe credit the pandemic for keeping him off of the road and in the studio. But they were recorded in different sessions over 16 years, though feel right at home with each other. Hear how opener Link Of Chain – a Chris Smithers song, here a dialogue between voice and guitar – shifts into a cool, bluesy, spoken-word Highway 61 Revisited, before moving on to the buoyant Variations On Earl Hooker’s Guitar Rumba, and then slowing down into an old 3/4-time folk song, Alvin’s voice now almost a croon. Other highlights include the guitar solo in revved-up rock’n’roller Albuquerque and his slow, swampy take on Marty Robbins’ Man Walks Among Us.