I've been talking for some time now about starting a new section which would focus on one particular artiste I admire, giving an introduction to them and their music, and telling you as much as I know or can find out about them. This is the first in that series, and features one of my all-time favourites, Steve Earle. Hope you enjoy it.
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Note: As usual, due to entry restrictions I have to split this into two parts. )
Just a Regular Guy, doin' it the Hard Way --- an introduction to Steve Earle
PART I: “I WONDER WHAT'S OVER THAT RAINBOW?”
There have of course been crossover acts for almost as long as music has been popular, from early jazz fusing with emerging rock'n'roll, blues tipping over into motown, even classical music has made the leap, at times, into a new and perhaps unexpected genre (remember those sexy lady violinists, Bond?). But one of the major crossovers in the past twenty years or so has been the slow and sometimes unnoticed proliferation of country and western as it sticks a cowboy boot gingerly over the fence into rock country, and pop country. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but in general country has become more accepted in the pop/rock sector these days than perhaps it would have been in earlier decades.
The likes of Leanne Rimes, Faith Hill, and (shudder!) Garth Brooks have all flown the flag for country in the pop arena, and of course the most successful and highest-profile crossover has been the Eagles, who made country music cool with their “Hotel California” album, bringing country to a whole new audience. Granted, there are those who would say that album is about as far removed from country as Dave Grohl is from chamber music, but the fact remains that, whatever they morphed into along the way, the Eagles began their careers as a full-out country band --- just listen to their earlier albums if you doubt me.
Of course, as Gloria Estefan once wrote, it cuts both ways, and more than one established rock or pop star has tried their hand at penning or singing country songs, again with mixed results. There are many reasons why a singer or band specialising in one area of music will try to break into another, or often more than one, the first and usually most important being cash: it's obvious that if you start out as, say, a blues guitarist and then break into the pop circuit, or indeed the country realm, you make more converts to your music and this translates into more sales, both of albums and concert tickets, to say nothing of the ever-lucrative merchandising deals. All of which equals more Dollars, Euro, Sterling or the currency of your choice in your bank account, or more likely, your manager and/or record label's account!
But there can be other reasons. Sometimes, it's a genuine interest in another music form, an experiment if you will, that causes your music to reach new ears. Sometimes it's boredom and frustration at perhaps the restrictions your particular area of music places upon you (not too many wild guitar solos in the world of electronica, nor songs about cowsheds or truck drivers in the punk pantheon!), and sometimes it may of course be your label pushing you to explore new territory, ie give them more opportunities to make money out of you! Then of course there is the chance meeting/jam with someone from another music spectrum who, after having played with them, opens your eyes as an artist to new possibilities you had perhaps not before considered.
And then of course, there's chance, or more correctly word-of-mouth, the fact that your music just sort of organically grows outside its own limits, when people come to see you play, or people hear you on the radio or see you on the TV (or these days, stumble across you via Youtube et al!), or even are recommended your music, either through a friend or an article in a magazine, and suddenly you find that you have a lot of new fans, and though your music is not exactly what they would usually listen to, it's making the transition and you're becoming more than the sum of your parts.
Where these crossovers have been less successful though, in general, is from country to rock. Country to pop, certainly, but actual rock? Not too many have made that transition, and whereas some rock and metal acts have flirted with the inclusion of country tracks on their albums (we all remember Poison's “Every rose has its thorn”, of course, and to some extent Bon Jovi's “Wanted dead or alive” could be considered at least partially country in its themes if not its actual execution, as could “Dry county”), typically the avenue has been more or less one-way and quite limited.
All of which leads us, via a very meandering road, to a young man who at age 14 decided what he wanted to do more than anything else in the world was play music. Stephen Fain Earle began a music career under the patronage of legendary country rocker Townes Van Zandt, and although his first actual album was more a rockabilly affair than a country one, what is generally accepted to be his first “real” album, “Guitar town”, is pure country. Released in 1986, its themes explore mostly the feeling of being at a loose end, or a crossroads in your life, the idea of being left behind, feeling the world is passing you by, and somehow knowing that there is something better out there. Most of the songs on the album reflect this, including the title track, “Hillbilly highway” and “Someday”, while others tackle other issues, issues that were to crop up and become more important in Earle's later life, and recordings.
“Think it over” and “Goodbye's all we got left” are standard songs about love, however they're not as might be expected ballads. The former tips a nod back to Earle's early (ahem!) days with rockabilly, whereas “Goodbye...” is a straight-ahead country-rocker. “Good ol' boy (getting' tough)” is a rant against the way the “little guy” is getting stepped on in Modern America, and how hard it is to get by, a theme that would re-occur through his later albums. He sings of his truck which
”Belongs to me and the bank/ And some funny-talkin' guy from Iran.”
Though there were some inklings of the rock power that would come to the fore on his later recordings here, “Guitar town”, despite its rock'n'roll title, is primarily a country album, and it would take his next release, “Exit 0” before the true rock roots would begin to break through. Nevertheless, his debut did get him nominated for two Grammys and noticed by mostly rock critics, whereas the country boys didn't seem to get it, at first. This would change with time, and in 2006 it was recognised by CMT (Country Music TV, the country equivalent of MTV) as one of the forty greatest country albums of all time. Not only that, but country legend Emmylou Harris covered the title track, no doubt a great honour to Earle.
The next year saw the release of his second album, the altogether more rocky “Exit 0”. With songs like “Angry young man”, “The rain came down” and “San Antonio girl”, the country was still there but was now beefed up by music that could comfortably sit alongside any rocker's music collection. It was rock, Jim, but not as we know it. There were still the country songs (and probably always will be on Earle's albums, as he's never denied or disparaged his connection to country music), like “Nowhere Road”, “No. 29” and the hugely enjoyable “Week of living dangerously”, plus some classy ballads. Credited to “Steve Earle and the Dukes”, the Dukes being his backing band, this was one of only two albums that bore that legend, and led to another two Grammy nominations for Steve.
It wasn't however until the following year that Earle broke completely over into the rock spectrum, with the release of 1988's “Copperhead Road”. The album is reviewed in its entireity on page one of my journal, so I won't go into too much detail about it here, but it did earn praise from both
Rolling Stone and
The New York Times, and established Earle as a bona-fide rock artist, albeit with country blood (or, one suspects, oil!) in his veins. He took two years to craft his next album, also released as “Steve Earle and the Dukes”, and in 1990 “The hard way” was released. Far more a rock record with echoes of country, this was how much of Steve's output (with some notable exceptions) would turn out from now on. It's a powerful album, with not one bad track, dealing with themes as diverse as the death penalty (“Billy Austin”), political responsibility (“When the people find out”) and murder (“Justice in Ontario”). Much of the mood of the album is centred on individuality or maverickism (is that a word?), like opener “The other kind”, and more powerfully “This highway's mine (Roadmaster)”.
Steve Earle's gritty voice is a sort of a cross between Tom Waits, Kenny Rogers's tougher brother and Springsteen, and he possesses a natural flair for tapping into the mind and heart of the common man. He writes songs about people primarily, making points --- political, religious or philosophical --- through the medium of his lyrics. He does not shy away from the more difficult, controversial topics, as evidenced on his 2002 outing “Jerusalem”, where he wrote “John Walker's Blues”, a song about John Walker Lindh, an American who joined the Taliban. His use of the phrase “There is no god but God” in the lyric, and the Islamic chant in the chorus, got a lot of people's backs up, but did not stop him from including it on the album. Renegade, maverick, lone wolf... call him what you will, Earle is not afraid to stand up for, and more importantly, write and sing about, what he believes in, and what he believes is right. A staunch opponent of the death penalty, he has written many songs on the subject, spoken at rallies and written about it, and campaigned heavily against the taking of a man's life for his crimes. He has been in trouble with the law himself, in his earlier days running guns and being involved with drugs, activities which eventually landed him in jail. On his release in 1994 he had kicked the heroin habit and began turning his life around, recording and releasing two albums in the same year. Almost.
Personally, “Train a-comin'” wasn't for me. Returning to his country roots, Earle recorded the album acoustically, and played with some other famous country stars on the album, including Emmylou herself. I need to listen to it more, perhaps, but my first impressions of it were such that, personally, I never felt the urge to revisit it. Perhaps that's something long overdue. At any rate, the album was again nominated for a Grammy (his first nomination since “Exit 0”, tellingly), and was joined fifteen months later by “I feel alright”, again with a country feel but more of the rock idea we had got used to on albums like “Copperhead Road” and “The hard way”. I like this album, and although as mentioned I probably didn't give “Train a-comin'” the attention it may deserve, this felt like an album of release, that is to say, it sounded like someone coming out of the darkness and into the light.
The opening tracks, the title track and follow-up “Hard core troubadour” set the mood for the album, and it's almost impossible not to hear the cries of “Hallelujah! I have been saved!” in the joyful lyrics, which is not to in any way slight Earle's time in jail, and the changes it forced upon him, or to suggest that he “found God” in jail: I have no idea whether or not he's a believer. He certainly believes in something. But there is a definite sense of redemption about this album. Perhaps a weaker man would have given up after two years of incarceration, and addiction to Sweet Lady H, but Steve Earle seems to prove the old quote “That which does not kill me only makes me stronger.” Interestingly, there's a track on it called “South Nashville Blues”, whereas on “The hard way” you can find “West Nashville Boogie.”
(Part two follows, stay tuned...)