It took three decades of friendship before Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore realized it might be a good idea to play music together and record some songs.
Fortunately for Milwaukee music fans, this long-forming but riveting realization—debuting on last year’s Downey to Lubbock on Yep Roc—appeared in physical form at a packed Shank Hall on Thursday, June 6, when Alvin and Gilmore, backed by Alvin’s Guilty Ones, turned lost time into a hell of a fun time.
The show began and ended with the melding of the folk standard “Down by the Riverside” into the “Downey to Lubbock” title track, which mythologies Alvin and Gilmore’s pasts over a Tarheel Slim, “Wildcat Tamer” riff. Interestingly, they used a recording of the song at the beginning and performed the song themselves to end the evening, perfectly capping a show that saw them repeatedly touching on their musical heroes and inspirations.
While Alvin’s Stratocaster fireworks as always were a major source of delight, the duo’s stories and banter between songs were also engaging, including the story of how the late singer-songwriter Steve Young told both Alvin and Gilmore at different times that he had written the song “Silverlake” specifically for each man. Alvin also told how they had seen some of the same artists in the 1960s at the famed Ash Grove folk music club in Los Angeles (which Alvin has paid tribute to previously with the song and album of the same title), including Lightnin’ Hopkins, who had a similar earth-shattering impact on both men.
Thought of mainly as a crooner during his time as a member of the Flatlanders and in his solo work, the 74-year-old Gilmore unleashed, quite convincingly, his inner ’50s R&B whaler on songs like Hopkins’ “Buddy Brown’s Blues” and the Lloyd Price classic “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.”
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Unexpectedly, Gilmore also served a direct role in a couple’s romance, when he announced a man’s marriage proposal to a fellow concertgoer and, apparently from the post-announcement kiss, future life partner. Ever the jokester, Alvin followed Gilmore’s real announcement with a “second announcement” that a “Jenny” wanted a divorce from a certain “Jim,” without missing a beat.
In addition to songs from their album together, the men also dipped into their individual catalogs with rousing versions of “Fourth of July,” “My Mind’s Got a Mind of Its Own,” and “Marie, Marie.” Gilmore’s “Tonight I Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown,” the second song performed, came off as a bit of a toss-off.
The Guilty Ones, including drummer Lisa Pankratz, a Texan who previously pounded the beat for Ronnie “the Blond Bomber” Dawson, were superb. When Pankratz really got going, she made a fierce face that seemed to bring out her inner savage. She made quite the fiery combo with her husband, bassist Brad Fordham, and guitarist Chris Miller. Performing acoustically with a member of his band, Taylor Scott performed groove-focused, blues-and-country-influenced originals that were warmly received by the audience.
