Billy's News: Mar 2001

LATEST NEWS----Dave Alvin's PUBLIC DOMAIN: SONGS FROM THE WILD LAND wins a 
Grammy in the category of Best Traditional Folk album of 2000. Back in 
January Dave stated, "I'm floating on cloud nine. As corny as it sounds, it's 
amazing to be nominated. You put a lot of time in a studio and band and this 
is how you get paid back." The awards were held in Los Angeles at the Staple 
Center on February 21. - The Blasters have been in the studio recording what 
may be their first album in 14 years. The band has promised a new album many 
times over the years. This time, they are cautiously waiting to see how the 
project turns out. --  --Dave and Greg Leisz will appear on the Prairie Home 
Companion syndicated radio show on 5/26/01. It should air that day and the 
weekend following. -ACHTUNG German fans! Dave will have his Bremen Germany 
show on 3/26 broadcast on FM radio in Germany. Get your tape machines ready. 
-- Watch this spring and summer for a few tribute and various artist CDs with 
Dave tracks on them: A  Mississippi John  Hurt Tribute on Vangard records, 
Los Straightjackets new album, and  Interstate 10 Chronicles Vol. 2 on 
Virgin. -- The Blasters played the Blue cafe in Long Beach on January 12 and 
13th. Original Blasters drummer Bill Bateman played drums the first night and 
Jerry Angel returned the second night. --  In January Dave did the narration 
and some music for a PBS documentary. --  Gregory Boaz reports on his latest: 
"A song of Brenda's (Burns) that I produced called "I Have The Right To Know" 
was in the film TRIXIE with Emily Watson.  A song I worked on of Brenda's 
"When Love was New" recorded by Francine Reed will be in a film called Loving 
Lulu with Meline Grifith.  Also "Pops" Staples (that passed away a few days 
before Christmas) has recorded 3 of Brenda's songs I produced.  I ran into 
Mavis Staples this summer when I was playing with John Mayall and she told me 
the songs would be coming out soon on a Staples Singers record. I'm currently 
collaborating with Brenda on a batch of new song demos." -- Rick Shea filmed 
two music videos in SF in Nov 2000  and they'll be screening any time now on 
Bay TV (a cable station affiliated with SF's KRON-TV, with a wide broadcast 
range). Brantley Kearns plays on the videos for WALKING TO JERSALEM and 
EMPEROR OF THE NORTH from the new CD Sawbones  - Prairie Home Companion on 
5/26 with Greg Leisz. Will air that weekend

DAVE ALVIN REPORT: "COUNTDOWN TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN FOLLOW-UP ALBUM"
Dave Alvin: HighTone is talking about doing a 2 CD Best of Dave CD for this 
year. One disc would be acoustic and the other electric. I'd like to put it 
out after a new album of originals comes out. We've been talking about what 
would go on the best of. Maybe THE CUCKOO from Katy Moffatt's CD and KERN 
RIVER from Tulare Dust. We definitely will record some new songs like the 
cajun versions of MARIE MARIE and BETWEEN THE CRACKS. We'll have at least two 
or three unreleased songs.
As for a new album of originals,  Tom Russell was out here in January and 
we're writing new songs.