Dave Alvin and a Couple of Guilty Women, plus Amanda Shires and Her Men...

Saturday Feb 27 8:00PM Add to Calendar
Skipper's Smokehouse [map]

These tickets are available at outlets for the advanced price of $17...or get them for $20 at the door ~ On-line sales ended at 4:30pm on Friday, 2/26

In roots rock 'n' roll circles, Dave Alvin is a legend. His work with the Blasters alone earned him a spot in the rocking pantheon. He also has turned in excellent, rocking music with the Flesh Eaters, the Knitters and X. Austin-based Dobro and steel guitarist Cindy Cashdollar will blow your socks off.

The roots music master comes for a special acoustic trio show. Cindy Cashdollar on guitars and Christy McWilson on vocals round out the trio. The reviews from the first shows on this tour say this is the best music of his long career:
“On this night…the trio's first stop on an East Coast mini-tour was too exquisite to end. Yes, the barroom bluesman kicked it a couple of times -- with his own "Marie Marie" and "Haley's Comet," a song Alvin said he wrote with Tom Russell in a midtown hotel room. He also reminded everyone of his roots with a hard-as-nails "Long White Cadillac" as his opener. But, as this brilliant man himself will tell you, he plays two kinds of folk music -- loud and quiet. Before a crowd that called out requests between songs but remained still during them, Alvin and his angels pulled a magical bow across the heartstrings with cello-like mournfulness.”

The poignant journey which culminated in Dave Alvin's new album Dave Alvin & The Guilty Women began in San Francisco. Dave Alvin was bounding off the stage at the massive, free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Nearly before he was able to set foot on his beloved California dirt, Alvin was grabbed by friend and Yep Roc label co-founder Glenn Dicker. "We've gotta make a record!"

The reason for Dicker's excitement - and the excitement of the thousands of music fans who just witnessed it - was the set Alvin and all female band The Guilty Women had just laid down moments before. Dave and band members Cindy Cashdollar, Nina Gerber, Laurie Lewis, Christy McWilson, Sarah Brown, Amy Farris and Lisa Pankratz blazed through their set, surprising each other at every turn. "It just felt so natural," says Alvin. "It was like I had been playing with them for a hundred years."

You couldn't tell, watching him on stage that day, but the events in Alvin's life that had led up to it were some of the most trying of his life. Six months before, Guilty Men accordionist Chris Gaffney passed away following a valiant battle with cancer. Gaffney wasn't only the accordionist in Alvin's band, he was his best friend. Alvin set out calling some of the biggest names in roots music to come together to honor his fallen friend with Man of Somebody's Dreams: A Tribute to the Songs of Chris Gaffney.

With the catharsis of the tribute album project in tow, Alvin turned his attention to his next musical move. One thing was clear, he knew he wasn't yet ready to record with The Guilty Men again. The wound of Gaffney's death was still too fresh, the space on the stage where he once stood still too empty. Alvin decided now was the time for something new. Knowing Hardly Strictly was just up the tracks, he called friend and Austin-based guitarist Cindy Cashdollar. Cashdollar jumped in with both feet and the other ladies followed suit. Having played together in various incarnations with several Guilty Women in the past, Alvin was confident the chemistry would be right. "The reality that we'd never played together as a group and that there was no time to rehearse before our debut performance didn't bother me at all. I knew that they were all master musicians who could easily handle any sort of song I could throw at them. And that's exactly what they did and they did it effortlessly and beautifully."

For his current tour, Dave is playing with the two wowmen with whom he has forged the closest musical relationship: Cindy Cashdollar and Christy McWilson:

CINDY CASHDOLLAR (steel and lap steel guitar, Weissenborn, Beard resophonic guitar, National Tricone, National Baritone Tricone) Austin-based Dobro and steel guitarist Cindy Cashdollar's career has taken some surprising twists and turns that have led her to work with many of the leading artists in contemporary music including Rod Stewart, Van Morrison, Ryan Adams, Bob Dylan, Asleep at the Wheel, Garrision Keillor, Marcia Ball, Jorma Kaukonen, Leon Redbone, BeauSoleil, Daniel Lanois, and Redd Volkaert. Cindy's unerring ability to perfectly compliment a song or step out with a tasteful, imaginative, and exciting solo - and to do it in so many musical genres - has made her one of the most in-demand musicians on the American roots music scene.

CHRISTY MCWILSON (lead and harmony vocals)

A musical anomaly in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle's Christy McWilson and her band "The Picketts" stood steadfast against the overwhelming force of Seattle grunge during the 1990s, releasing 2 albums for Rounder Records and one for Popllama. Christy went on to record two solo albums on Hightone Records (both produced by Dave Alvin).