It took a brush with death to get
Dave and
Phil Alvin back on good enough terms to make music together again, and after reuniting in the studio for 2014's
Common Ground: Dave & Phil Alvin Play and Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy, the siblings thankfully didn't wait until one of them ended up in the emergency room to give it another try.
Lost Time is another set of vintage blues tunes, but while
Common Ground was an acoustic set that focused on the songbook of blues legend
Broonzy, the Alvins mix it up on
Lost Time, playing both electric and acoustic numbers and drawing inspiration from a variety of artists and songwriters, though rollicking jump blues master
Big Joe Turner gets special attention here, with
Dave and
Phil tackling three of his compositions.
Dave's raucous guitar lines give their
Turner interpretations a feel that's different than the originals, but
Dave and the band show plenty of love for the joyous, rolling boogie of
Turner's signature sound, and
Phil's big, bold voice is the perfect instrument for tunes like "Feeling Happy" and "Cherry Red Blues." If
Phil is the star singer in the Alvin family,
Dave shows he can give sly, streetwise readings to tunes like "Rattlesnakin' Daddy" and "Sit Down, Baby," and his vocals help give this album a looser, more playful sound than
Common Ground.
Dave and
Phil seem a little less concerned with honoring the legacy of a great artist (even if they had fun doing so) than they are in jamming on tunes they love and kicking up some dust in the studio, and
Lost Time does just that.
Dave and
Phil Alvin sing and play this music direct from the heart, whether they're wailing on an early
James Brown side or getting right with the Lord on a classic spiritual from
Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey, and as always they consistently hit the sweet spot between technique and passion. If
Dave and
Phil Alvin want to crank out an album like
Lost Time every year until the sun finally sets on them, no one who loves blues and roots music would have any room to complain. ~ Mark Deming
