Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and self-
described “barroom guitarist” Dave Alvin is widely considered one of the pivotal founders
of the entire Americana music genre. Since forming the highly influential roots rock/
R&B band The Blasters with his brother Phil in 1979, to his days with, X and The Knitters,
and throughout his long and critically acclaimed solo career, Dave Alvin has mixed his
varied musical and literary influences into his own unique, updated version of traditional
American music. Beneath the iconoclastic reputation of Alvin and the all-star talent of his
powerhouse band The Guilty Ones, there lurks the heart of Americana and roots music.

Combining elements of blues, folk, R&B, rockabilly, Bakersfield country, and garage rock
and roll with lyrical inspiration from local writers and poets like Raymond Chandler,
Gerald Locklin and Charles Bukowski, the California native says that his songs are “just
like California. A big, messy melting pot.” Alvin’s songs have been recorded by cutting
edge contemporary roots artists such as Los Lobos, Little Milton, Joe Ely, Dwight Yoakam,
James McMurtry and X, and featured in many movies and television shows including The
Sopranos, True Blood, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Crybaby, Miss Congeniality, From Dusk To
Dawn, and most recently on the FX series “Justified.”