Dave Alvin, Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter and self-described "barroom guitarist," is widely considered to be one of the pivotal founders of the current Americana music scene. A fourth generation Californian, Dave Alvin grew up in Downey, California as the local landscape quickly evolved from orange groves and dairy farms to tract homes and freeways. 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. Combining 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, Alvin says that his songs are "just like California.  A big, messy melting pot." Dave Alvin's 30 years of recordings and live performances move through the loud, aggressive rock and roll of The Blasters to the contemplative acoustic storytelling of his solo albums, (KING OF CALIFORNIA, BLACKJACK DAVID, DAVE ALVIN & THE GUILTY WOMEN) and from the traditional folk of his Grammy winning CD, PUBLIC DOMAIN to the electric blues of his ASHGROVE CD. Alvin has always managed to unite seemingly disparate genres into a cohesive vision of contemporary roots music. You can expect no less from his latest album, ELEVEN ELEVEN, released on Yep Roc Jun 21st 2011. Dave Alvin's songs have been recorded by a who's who of contemporary roots artists from Los Lobos, Little Milton, Robert Earl Keen, Marshal Crenshaw and Joe Ely to Dwight Yoakam, James McMurtry, Buckwheat Zydeco, Alejandro Escovedo and X. His songs have also been featured in many movies and television shows including Justified, The Sopranos, True Blood, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Crybaby, Miss Congeniality and From Dusk To Dawn.

After nearly two decades as a singer in various Seattle-area pop and roots rock bands, Christy McWilson finally released her solo debut, The Lucky One, in 2000. McWilson first recorded in the early '80s as one-third of the girl group pastiche the Dynette Set, who released a few singles and compilation tracks in the first half of the decade, including "Seed of Love," a standout on the 1984 Rhino female-focused new wave compilation The Girls Can't Help It. That song was co-written and produced by Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows, who later became McWilson's husband. After the demise of the Dynette Set, McWilson played around Seattle in various short-lived groups while adding backing vocals to various Young Fresh Fellows albums (the Fellows' college radio hit "Amy Grant" particularly benefited from McWilson's sassy vocals). In 1990, McWilson helped form the Picketts, who released three albums -- Paper Doll, The Wicked Picketts, and Euphonium -- over the course of the '90s. As the Picketts disbanded, more out of sloth than acrimony, longtime fan Dave Alvin approached McWilson with an offer to produce her first solo album, made up of her originals (many concerning her lifelong struggle with a bipolar disorder) and a heartfelt, lovely cover of Brian Wilson's "Til I Die." The album, The Lucky One, was recorded with a core band that included Alvin, Peter Buck, and Rick Shea on guitars; Bob Glaub and Walter Singleman on bass; and Don Heffington on drums. It also features guest appearances by Syd Straw, the Old 97s' Rhett Miller, and R.E.M.'s Mike Mills. Two years later, she called on many of the same musicians to help her put together her second solo album, Bed of Roses.