In This Issue: Rick Shea on Sawbones, Dave Alvin's Guilty Woman Katy Moffatt, and a look back at the
Blasters 1982 Soundstage TV concert.

The current lineup of the Blasters played two sets of great music and in the encore of the last set, Phil saw that Dave and Bill Bateman were in the club so he called them to the stage. Phil announced to the audience, "There are some special friends here, so I'll have them come up and play a couple of tunes. One is Bill Bateman and say hello to my brother, Dave Alvin, not to be confused with Phil Alvin. Thanks to Jerry and Keith for being so gracious."
They then launched into MARIE MARIE. Next the rare songs started to come out, including the Elmore James song CRY FOR ME. I asked John Bazz if there was any previous discussion of playing the song, because they played it perfectly. John Bazz: "Nothing is ever discussed. I think Dave started noodling around with that lick. That's all it takes is Phil to hear that and we said, 'Let's do CRY FOR ME.' The same thing happened when Bill and Dave played with us at the Blue Café in June. A lot of songs, Dave kind of noodled on the guitar to send the message to Phil. No words spoken. Phil would either accept or decline." The last time the Blasters played that song was when Dave was still in the Blasters. The song was recorded in the Non-Fiction album sessions and appeared on the Blasters collection CD as a bonus track. Next, Dave played a little of ROCK BOPPIN' BABY, but it didn't catch on so they started the Joe Turner medley song JUMP CHILDREN/ MY BABY'S A JOCKEY. The band went off stage and the crowd noise was so loud the band came back for a second encore and played a real rarity - Carl Perkins MATCHBOX.  ~~AM

have written MATCHBOX because too many of those words are in other blues tunes. Carl said he didn't write MATCHBOX; it was a song that the black field workers pickers would sing on the plantation. His dad was the sharecropper. He just took it as a teenager and adapted it using some of their words and some of his words into a song." Dave also adds, "I'm sure Phil did it tactfully. A lot of the Sun Records guys in the Memphis area listened to WDIA and that station was the first to exclusively play black music. Elvis, for instance, learned a lot of black music by listening to that station. So they could have heard Blind Lemon Jefferson on there."  Blind Lemon Jefferson made the song a hit in the 1930's. Dave continues, "The way I look at the rockabilly guys was that they didn't have record collections. It was more of an environmental thing. They might just hear part of the song and then try by memory to play it.  MATCHBOX was recorded by a lot of artists including western swing acts. Bob Wills changed the lyrics on his. That opening line in MATCHBOX was in a lot of songs. I think Carl said his dad suggested he do the song."
     In the interview Carl praised the Blasters. Carl: "It's so great to be around you guys. Somebody sent me a Blasters album, I put it on and I said, Wait a minute here is something that was cut at Sun records and it didn't get released! It really sounds like the Sun records feel. It's cut better -- You all play better." Dave cuts in and says, "Oh come on. Are you gonna' tell me I play better than Roland Janes?" As everybody laughs, Carl comes back, "Let me put it this way. I haven't heard you play yet with a fifth of whiskey sitting on the floor. That's the way we cut them records back at Sun. (laughs)."  ~~AM