Dave Alvin: Public Domain: Songs For The Wild Land

As one of the leaders of the Los Angeles band The Blasters, Dave Alvin was a driving force in the then-insurgent roots-rock movement. In the case of The Blasters, "roots" referred to the earliest days of rock 'n' roll, when country mingled freely with blues, folk, and other starting points to create propulsive hybrids such as rockabilly. Of course, the roots of rock and just about every other form of popular music go back further than that, all the way to the standards—constantly retooled and passed down from generation to generation—that make up America's rich collection of public-domain songs. Most of this music was adapted from traditional material itself brought to America from other countries, and even if the songs had specific authors, they've long since vanished into the annals of folklore. Public Domain is Alvin's tribute to this great music, a collection of 15 author-unknown songs that have stayed around for decades. Alvin's approach acknowledges the haunting quality that traipsing through history can evince; Public Domain is like a photo album of ghosts, where the images are recognizable but occupying some other plane. Alvin's full-band renditions of "Shenandoah" and "Maggie Campbell" have the feeling of hymnal and hoe-down, respectively, and he delivers a chilling reading of "Murder Of The Lawson Family." (The melody is the same as another public-domain masterpiece, "Down In The Willow Garden," demonstrating how this music changes with different interpretations.) Alvin's music is respectful but not reverential; he knows how important his own voice is to these songs, so new versions of the popular "Delia," "Walk Right In," or "What Did The Deep Sea Say" don't come off as pat. Instead, these songs are companions to the real thing, as worthy as the music captured by Harry Smith and any of the many subsequent reinterpretations. As Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Bruce Springsteen, and dozens of other musicians have realized, the public domain is a valuable resource: Through these songs, songwriters can inject themselves into the creative continuum, a piece of history in hindsight.