Standard-Examiner staff?lbrady@standard.net?

G

uitarist/singer/songwriter Dave Alvin likes to say that there are two kinds of folk music, loud and quiet — and it so happens that he plays both. ?

While he might not have household name status, Alvin has left an indelible mark on a variety of styles of American roots music. In his early 20s, he and his older brother Phil and their band The Blasters roared out of Downey, Calif., in the late ’70s, scoring an international hit with the first song the younger brother ever wrote — “Marie, Marie.”?Though the band never equaled that first success chart-wise, the group had a solid run before the younger Alvin went out on his own in 1986. ?He since has worked solo, and also as a featured sideman in such defining and varied Los Angeles bands as the punk outfit X, death rockers The Flesh Eaters and the country-punk group The Knitters. ?But it is as frontman for his own projects that Alvin has made his mark, growing from a much-in-demand guitarist into a songwriter’s songwriter. His tunes have been recorded by such artists as Dwight Yoakam, Kelly Willis, Los Lobos and Joe Ely, and featured in television shows and movies including “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under” and “Cry Baby.” ?Alvin’s songwriting and warm, baritone vocals will be on display next weekend, when he brings only his acoustic guitar and his longtime Fender-playing sideman Chris Miller to headline the Ogden Music Festival, put on by the Ogden Friends of Acoustic Music. ?Alvin and Miller last played Utah in 2005 at Libby Gardner Hall in Salt Lake City, hosting and performing at a songwriter’s workshop and showcase. Miller has been part of Alvin’s band The Guilty Men for many years.?”I have always been very lucky to have great musicians around me, making me look great,” said Alvin, speaking from a tour stop in Minneapolis. “I’d seen Chris play with various people, so when the second guitarist seat in my band became available, I went and got him. We don’t really even rehearse. I can just say, ‘The key of G — let’s go’ and we go. He is good at hitting the curve ball. Very, very good.” ?

Tribute to a friend?

Alvin always has a number of side projects going, but he has recorded and toured most often in recent years with The Guilty Men. The hard-rocking group with a bluesy edge featured the talents of accordionist/guitarist/singer/songwriter Chris Gaffney. He was also one of Alvin’s closest friends. ?Gaffney passed away in 2008, soon after being diagnosed with liver cancer. The death sent Alvin into a deep funk. ?”Chris was a special man,” said Alvin. “He was the real deal and I still miss him every day.”?In 2009, as part of his grieving process, Alvin produced and performed on a tribute album called “The Man of Somebody’s Dreams: The Songs of Chris Gaffney.” ?”He never really got the break he deserved in the music business,” said Alvin of Gaffney. “So I wanted to do this to give him his due.”?The tribute album was a work from the heart — not only for Alvin, but also for many talented fans and friends of Gaffney who were hurting from the loss. Other artists performing were The Iguanas, Tom Russell, Dan Penn and James McMurtry. The album has received rave reviews and solid Americana radio support. ?Alvin credits the strength of the album to a trick or two he’s learned performing on and producing other tribute projects.?”One of the secrets is to steer the right song to the right artist,” Alvin said. “It does boil down to getting people who have some sort of connection to the artist, musically and emotionally, and then guiding them a little bit. The great thing about this was, a lot of people, from all walks, loved Chris’ music, and you can see that in this lineup. I mean, it’s not every day that you get a tribute CD with both Boz Skaggs and Calexico on it.”?

Guilty Women as well?

The emotional toll of Gaffney’s death left Alvin for a time unable to face the hole his friend left in his Guilty Men lineup.?”Everything I was looking at reminded me of Chris. And so for a change of scenery, I surrounded myself with some very talented women.”?In 2008, Texas slide/steel guitarist Cindy Cashdollar encouraged Alvin to join her and other musicians for a one-off show at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, where they brought down the house. ?Soon after, Alvin went to Austin, Texas, to record “Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women” with Cashdollar, guitarist Nina Gerber, violinists Laurie Lewis and Amy Farris, lead and background vocalist Christy McWilson, bassist Sarah Brown and drummer Lisa Pankratz. ?Cuts feature Alvin originals, including a zydeco-style version of “Marie, Marie,” as well as surprising reworkings such as “Que Sera, Sera.” ?”It was a spur-of-the-moment decision,” said Alvin of the show, and the album that followed in 2009. “I did not put a lot of thought into it. Just seemed like the thing to do.”?Although the “Guilty Women” CD features Alvin on acoustic guitar, he straps on his trusty electric for their concerts. The Guilty Women sets are hard-rocking, show-stealing affairs. ?”A lot of women in the audience are pretty moved by it all, too,” said Alvin. “There have been some great all-women bands … but there has never really been an all-women’s roots-rock band like this. I would stack them up against any band I ever played with.”?While Alvin admits to having a ball playing with this all-female band, this project, too, has been struck by personal loss. Fiddler Farris committed suicide in September 2009. ?”Amy was a brilliant musician and arranger,” said Alvin quietly. “It was an interesting turn of events — and very tragic, of course.?”But I guess what you do when these things happen is keep right on going. The way

I deal with it is, I just keep plugging in the guitar, turning it up and doing what it is I do.” ?