Sometimes I forget
how certain records
find their way
into my collection.
I may have mistaken
Dave Alvin for Dave
Allen of Gang of Four
and Shriekback fame,
but on second thought,
I’m pretty sure this
record was a bonus
for an order I made
a long time ago
directly from Yep Roc,
probably a freebee that
came with a record by
Robyn Hitchcock.
So here’s this thing,
Common Ground,
Dave and Phil Alvin
Play and Sing the Songs of
Big Bill Broonzy.
This is not my wheelhouse.
This may be only the third
time in a decade that I have
ever played this record, and
yet, it remains in the collection.
Why did I keep it?
Why do I still have it?
Big Bill Broonzy died in 1958,
a famous African-American
blues guitarist who came
into prominence in the 20’s,
a best-seller by the 40’s.
This is the only blues album
in my collection, and oddly,
a record of cover tunes of
a black blues giant by a couple
of American white guys.
Nevertheless, it serves to
fill a huge gap in my musical
taste and education. This
music must have been pivotal
for the Alvin brothers in a way
that it could never be for me,
and yet, while it won’t find
itself in heavy rotation any time
soon, I like it. It’s transportive,
and I know in my bones
that without this music,
nothing that I currently love
would even exist in this world.
Notes on this vinyl edition: Common Ground: Dave Alvin and Phil Alvin Play and Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy, Yep Roc Records, 2014, black vinyl. Super clean pressing.
Postscript in Bullets:
- This is the 4th poem in a series of poems about records in my collection, A to Z
- All the poems in this series will have dumb titles
- The poems may or may not be a direct response to the listening, but tangential, discursive, journal-like
michael jarmer 