Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women – Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women

Time for some serious catching up. While I’ve been slowly plowing through descriptions of my record collection in something like alphabetical order (on the last few entries, maybe my ordering wasn’t so perfect), I’ve also been adding records from artists earlier in the alphabet, which means at some point having to go back.

When new records come in, they go onto a “new records” shelf that reminds me to give them some spins and that I haven’t cataloged them on this blog. Until I get to them here, they don’t get slipped into their proper place on the regular shelves. Well, that new records shelf has become unmanageable because this project has moved so slowly, so now it’s time once again to do some catchup. I’m just going to give the quickest of descriptions of some of these entries, since they haven’t been in my life all that long.

Except, of course, this first one has been in my life for a long while, in digital form. Although it took me a few years after discovering solo Dave Alvin (in the form of “Interstate City”) to delve in further, when he came out with The Guilty Women project back in 2009 it definitely caught my attention. So we’ve been listening to these great songs for a long while now, and when I ran across this vinyl edition on a trip to Doylestown’s Siren Records a couple of months ago, there was no question it was coming home with me.

I loved that he was putting female musicians – not just singers – front and center. Every time we’ve seen him perform, the remarkable Lisa Pankratz has been his drummer. And on this record, the credits are right on the cover, highlighting the contributors, which I like to see. Overall, this is beautiful soulful western roots music. Highly recommended.