Deep Stacks No. 21 - Nine Volt Heart

“ASHGROVE” - DAVE ALVIN

A longtime father-son favorite artist with a deep discography to explore, who in our opinion epitomizes the crossroads of American Music on his brilliant masterpiece album, "Ashgrove", released on Yep Roc Records in 2004. Alvin's "Ashgrove" never gets static or genre bound from radio hook ready songs like "Nine Volt Heart" to gritty riff-driven blues grinders with dark-edgy lyrics depicting real world characters to an inspiring if heartbreaking portrait of 1930's poet Everett Ruess (look him up on wikipedia) to introspective folk-framed interludes and the catchy road trip ready pedal steel laced "Rio Grande". His career which began with the legendary Blasters has stretched across multiple decades includes a new book coming this Spring 2022. His lyricism and storytelling draws to mind the legacies of poets Robert Frost, Thoreau, Steinbeck, and Sandburg. "Ashgrove" after skillfully winding through a true crossroads of American music culminates with the stunning final track, "Somewhere In Time", an almost Tom Petty-esque, spacious acoustic send off to a masterpiece album that is both great listening and deeply layered lyrically and musically end to end.