Consumer Guide Album

Dave Alvin: Blackjack David [HighTone, 1998]
Fronting an acoustic band that gives his voice the breathing room it needs, Alvin brings off the quiet despair of "Evening Blues" and "From a Kitchen Table." But making the personal historical is still his metier--the border patrolman of "California Snow," the Vietnam casualty of "1968." He also knows how to make rootlessness historical. But I say he just likes the road. B+