Dave Alvin’s acclaimed 1998 album Blackjack David returns October 16 in a new Deluxe Edition from Craft Recordings and HighTone Records. Available on 2-LP, CD, and digital formats, the expanded release pairs the original album with two bonus tracks from the era.
The first, “Dixie Highway Blues,” was written for Blackjack David but later surfaced on 2008’s The Best of the HighTone Years. Even more intriguing is the previously unreleased “Angel On Your Shoulder,” recorded during the original sessions and recently completed by Alvin with longtime producer and collaborator Greg Leisz.
“[It] got away and it shouldn’t have,” says Alvin, “so it’s great to have it be part of the canon now.”
Both physical editions also feature newly commissioned liner notes from music journalist and No Depression co-founder Peter Blackstock.
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TURNING DOWN THE VOLUME
Dave Alvin made his name playing music with plenty of electricity. As a founding member of The Blasters alongside his brother Phil, he helped bring the band’s collision of blues, rockabilly, punk, and American roots music into the early Los Angeles punk scene.
After subsequent stints with X and The Knitters, Alvin struck out on his own with 1987’s Romeo’s Escape. By the mid-’90s, however, his music was moving somewhere different.
Instead of the high-voltage attack of his earlier bands, Alvin began exploring stripped-down arrangements that left more room for the stories inside his songs. That approach came into focus on King of California in 1994 and reached another level four years later with Blackjack David.
ALVIN & LEISZ
Central to that evolution was Greg Leisz, who reunited with Alvin after producing King of California.
Leisz wasn’t simply behind the console. Across Blackjack David, he contributed lap steel and slide guitar, mandolin, banjo, dobro, and pedal steel, creating a musical backdrop that could move between blues, folk, country, and rock without crowding Alvin’s vocals.
Alvin credits the partnership with changing his own approach to making music. “I’ve learned from a lot of musicians, but no one has taught me more than my dear friend Greg Leisz,” he recalls, describing the experience as “studying for a PHD in guitar playing, singing and producing.”
With largely acoustic arrangements, Alvin’s writing gets plenty of room out front, and the people inhabiting those songs aren’t always having an easy time of it.
STORIES FROM THE ROAD
The album opens with “Blackjack David,” a traditional song Alvin had first played with The Blasters. Its tale of a woman abandoning a comfortable home for a mysterious outlaw sets the stage for an album filled with people making difficult choices and living with what comes next.
From there, Alvin turns his attention to stories of his own. “Abilene” follows a young woman moving from place to place in search of something better, while “From a Kitchen Table” looks at the opposite fate: a man who never managed to leave.
“California Snow” puts the listener inside the perspective of a border agent, while “1968” follows an aging Vietnam veteran still living with the loss of his closest friend. Relationships unravel too, from “Evening Blues” and “The Way You Say Good-Bye” to the haunting possibility of reunion in “Tall Trees.”
LISTENING NOTES
“Blackjack David”
Start with the old song that gives the album its name. Alvin strips the traditional outlaw tale down and lets its darker details carry the weight.
“Abilene”
A restless character study about someone looking for a better life one town at a time. It’s a great example of Alvin writing songs that feel more like short stories.
“California Snow”
One of the record’s toughest listens, written from the perspective of a border patrol agent. Alvin doesn’t offer easy answers, which is exactly why the song lingers.
“Dixie Highway Blues”
Written during the Blackjack David era but left off the original album, this long-lost companion piece offers another glimpse into a particularly fertile period in Alvin’s songwriting. Its inclusion here helps complete the picture of the sessions.
“Angel On Your Shoulder”
The one that almost got away. Recorded during the original sessions and only recently finished by Alvin and Leisz, its arrival nearly three decades later makes it feel like a missing page restored to the album.
THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
In his new liner notes, Peter Blackstock describes Blackjack David as an album that helped Alvin become more confident in his own voice. That makes the return of “Angel On Your Shoulder” especially fitting.
The Deluxe Edition doesn’t need to reinvent Blackjack David. Instead, its two additional songs open the door slightly wider on a period when Alvin was stripping away some of the volume and discovering just how much could be carried by a voice, an acoustic guitar, and a well-told story.
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