Dave Alvin – Eleven Eleven

Again, playing catch-up with new purchases that were out of my alphabetical order. When I started this vanity project, I didn’t imagine this would be such a problem, because I was gonna move through my collection with such speed . . . oy to the vey. Clearly not what happened.

I wrote about this when I was recapping the best issues of 2022, and here it is 2024 before I’m getting around to giving it its own entry. Well, here’s what I said then:

I have loved this album since it came out in 2011. I had been lightly following Dave Alvin, and had picked up the CD of Dave Alvin and The Guilty Men’s “Interstate City” back around 1998, and loved it, but I didn’t get real deep. I listened to his album with The Guilty Women, and it was good but didn’t quite light a fire for me. But “Eleven Eleven” did. There’s a timing element to that – it came out in a year when my life changed in some important and positive ways, when our personal economic depression ended and I actually could buy music again. I bought this digitally, not even a CD, but in those days digital was most of my listening. And boy, did this one resonate. Alvin’s voice had hit a particular aged quality, his playing was incredible, and these rootsy but extremely rocking songs really touched a nerve. It starts with the driving, dark romantic ballad “Harlan County Line,” then launches into one of the most epic story-telling songs ever, “Johnny Ace Is Dead.” There’s some novelty fun in “What’s Up With Your Brother?” and a lot of beauty and sadness. The album got a lot of play through these years, but less in the last three years since I moved almost entirely to vinyl. This year Yep Roc announced there would be an 11th anniversary edition, expanded with three additional songs, to be released on Nov. 11. I ordered it back in June or July, whenever it was announced, and thought it might make a nice anniversary present for us, but also thought it unlikely it would actually ship and arrive in time for our anniversary. Then, to be honest, I forgot about it. To my surprise, it showed up right on Nov. 11, and It’s hardly left the turntable since.

In the year and change since I wrote that, it’s remained frequently played, but now that I’ve finally included it here, I can move it off the “new” shelf and back among the A’s. It won’t be forgotten.