Dave Alvin Pays Tribute to Blues Giant Willie Dixon, in the first release of the series:

“Peace” AVAILABLE NOW on YepRoc.com and DaveAlvin.net

”I first heard Willie Dixon's PEACE back in the early 1980's, when The Blasters were booked on to the PBS music show Soundstage. We had an hour to do whatever we wanted so we invited Carl Perkins and Willie Dixon to be our special guests. With Carl we performed various songs dating back to his time on Sun Records and with Willie we backed him up on older material he'd written for Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf. But then Willie wanted to do a new song he'd written called PEACE. It was a minor key blues driven by a typical Dixon hypnotic riff that I really dug. We gladly played the song with him and that was that.

Over the next few years, after I left The Blasters and started my solo career, Willie and I did a few performances together at various events. After hearing my singing voice for the first time, Willie repeatedly told me that PEACE would be a perfect song for me. Not being comfortable at the time with singing another writer's material, I always respectfully declined. Recently, when The Guilty Men and I had a day off in Los Angeles with nothing to do, I decided to go into Craig Parker Adams’ Winslow Court Studio and finally cut Willie's PEACE. For many reasons it just seemed like the right time. I also added a semi-improvised verse of my own at the end of the song just for the hell of it. I hope Willie doesn't mind too much.

Besides the current Guilty Men line-up on the track, (Chris Miller on slide guitar, Joe Terry on electric piano, Gregory Boaz on bass and Steve Mugalian on drums), I was proud to be joined by Dale Spalding on harmonica. Dale grew up in Downey, Ca. with my brother Phil and I and was a big influence on our musical development. Dale, along with his brother Larry, were the guys who told us that if we wanted to see real music we had to get ourselves down to a club called the Ash Grove (Thanks guys!!!). Dale currently plays in Latin jazzman Poncho Sanchez's orchestra and he's featured prominently in another song we cut the same day, EARL'S RUMBA, that will also be available soon through the websites”. - Dave Alvin 7/17/07

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Willie Dixon, the legendary Chicago bluesman, with his stellar songwriting and production, was the secret weapon of the legendary Chess Records throughout the 1950s. By the 1960s Dixon’s songs became the inspiration for much of the blues-based British invasion. His songs perked the ears of a young Dave Alvin who would go on to form The Blasters, and fulfill his dream of playing with the iconic songsmith. A friendship was forged, and now, after years of urging by Willie, Dave Alvin has cut Dixon’s unsung classic “PEACE.”

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