Another discography to get under way. I started listening to this man's music purely on the basis of the first of his albums I bought, which I pretty much only bought for the cover, hoping some decent music was inside. I've already reviewed that in full, in fact it was one of the first albums to be looked at in my main journal, but when it comes round I'll be giving it the "Bitesize" treatment too.
For now, for those of you who don't know him, let me introduce you to
Artiste: Steve Earle
Nationality:American
Album: Guitar Town
Year: 1986
Label: MCA
Genre: Country
Tracks:
Guitar Town
Goodbye's all we've got left
Hillbilly Highway
Good ol' boy (Gettin' tough)
My old friend the blues
Someday
Think it over
Fearless heart
Little rock'n'roller
Down the road
Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: I've listened to everything Steve Earle has done; big fan
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: n/a
Best track(s): Guitar Town, Good ol' boy (Gettin' tough), Hillbilly Highway, My old friend the blues, Fearless heart, Someday, Down the road
Worst track(s): Little rock'n'roller
Comments: I got into Steve Earle through
Copperhead Road and
The hard way, which are albums more rooted in the rock he would follow for many years, so his debut was something of a shock to me. It's not that it's a bad album --- it's actually very good --- but it couldn't really be called rock, or even Country/Rock: it's pure Country with a lot of bluegrass and rockabilly thrown in. You can hear this from the off, when the title track, a good rocker, is nevertheless very much the kind of thing you'd expect to hear coming out of Nashville around this time. Like the opener, “Hillbilly Highway” relates the (perhaps autobiographic, perhaps not) tale of a man breaking away and finding his own way in the world. Some really nice slap bass in this.
What I do like about Earle's music is that, like the best songwriters, they mostly tell a story, usually about ordinary lives, and often they touch on political issues. There's not really any of that though till we hit “Good ol' boy (Gettin' tough)”, when he laments the state of the American automotive industry ---
"A twenty thousand dollar pickup truck/ Belongs to me and the bank/ And some funny-talkin' man from Iran” and the decline of the attitude in the heartland of the USA, where a man is a man and does what he can to survive.
”I was born in the land of plenty” he tells us sadly,
”Now there ain't enough.” This is the first time the album really breaks out into something that could be said to approach rock, with a hard guitar driving the tune, where up to now, though the guitar has been present, much of the music has been reliant on the organ and synth lines of Ken Moore.
Earle plays to his strengths here, as he will on future albums, with songs coming in from the two to four minute mark: you won't find any eight-minute compositions on a Steve Earle record. He says what he has to say, with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of honesty and moves on. But he can write heartfelt ballads too, such as “My old friend the blues”, which relies mostly on picked guitar and his mellifluous voice, which here is completely cowboy singer, but will change soon to a harsher, rougher and less formulaic sound. Pedal steel of course adds its voice, then “Someday” returns to the singer longing to break out of the one-horse town he's stuck in ---
”They ask me how far to Memphis son?/ And where's the nearest beer?/ They don't even know/ That there's a town around here.” It's another song that has a good deal of punchy guitar in it, but the steel does rule, something that Earle would slowly drop, or at least cut back on, on later releases. “Think it over”, however, is pure rockabilly, not one of my favourites though it is catchy, with again a great bassline.
Much better is “Fearless heart”, which marches along confidently and resolutely, and which pretty much typifies Earle himself, a man few would try to tangle with but who has a gentle and compassionate heart. It's a slower song but not a ballad, however the next one is. I'm really not fond of “Little rock'n'roller”: it's just too twee for words, with a trucker calling his young son (the little rock'n'roller of the title) and agonising over being so far away. It's just too Country-by-the-numbers for me, with Earle almost breaking into tears. But the album ends well on “Down the road”, which opens on an
acapella line from Earle and then quickly turns into a bluegrass workout, returning to the
acapella vocal to end.
Edit: Just heard him doing a version of “State Trooper”, reminded me I need to check out
Nebraska again at my earliest opportunity!
Overall impression: If this had been my first Earle record I doubt I would have gone much further, if at all. That would have been my mistake.
Hum Factor: 8
Intention: n/a