Dave Alvin is a Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter and self-described "barroom guitarist," and is widely considered to be one of the pivotal founders of the current Americana music scene. Since forming the highly influential roots rock/R+B band The Blasters, with his brother Phil in 1979, and throughout his long and critically acclaimed solo career, Dave Alvin has mixed his varied musical and literary influences into his own unique, updated version of traditional American music.

His music combines elements of blues, folk, R+B, rockabilly, Bakersfield country and garage rock and roll with lyrical inspiration from local writers and poets like Raymond Chandler, Gerald Locklin and Charles Bukowski.