Duke of Earle

Sometimes I wonder whether Steve Earle is the country Bruce Springsteen or Bruce is the suburban Steve Earle. No matter; they're both exceptional songwriters with wide-based musical knowledge - the kind of artists who are rooted in tradition (Steve in country, Bruce in rock, and both in folk), but don't hesitate to extend it, which makes them my sort of musicians, and I listen to them both periodically.

Today's CD was Steve Earle's "Train a Comin'", an all-acoustic set performed with a small group of first class string musicians - Norman Blake primarily on guitar, dobro, and Hawaiian steel; Peter Rowan mainly on mandolin; Roy Huskey on bass. Two of the cuts feature Emmylou Harris' vocals. I think Emmylou sings harmony lines better than most people sing leads, and her presence adds class to whatever she touches. The songs are performed in traditional country style, although they span genres; even a cover of "I'm Looking Through You" is in the string group style (Steve refers to the Beatles as "the stuff I cut my teeth on - middle class white boy roots music") as is the umpteenth cover of "Rivers of Babylon". Highlights for me are a sweet honkytonk ballad, "Sometimes She Forgets" and the gunfighter tale of "Tom Ames' Prayer".

Back to Steve. He started as a country act, with songs like "Guitar Town", went through some personal hard times, came out as what the Grammy's call a "contemporary folk" artist (he won the category in 2005, and previous winners include Emmylou for "Red Dirt Girl" and Bruce for "Ghost of Tom Joad" along with Dylan, Warren Zevon, Tom Waits, John Prine and other worthies) . He's also been nominated in the bluegrass category for the album he cut with the Del McCoury Band - "The Mountain". That one features a set of tracks which sound like traditional songs you can almost recall; Steve wrote them all. If you're at all partial to this kind of music, it's an outstanding set. In fact, just about all Steve's CDs are worth picking up, including "I Feel Alright" and "El Corazon" from some years ago.

I like "Train a Comin'" for its small scale and more traditional folkie approach to songs; then again, my two favorites are probably "The Mountain" and - most of all - "Transcendental Blues", on which Steve shows his talents for a wide variety of song styles. His two most recent albums, "Jerusalem" (with the notorious song, "John Walker's Blues" - a small, well-crafted piece that tries to get inside John Walker Lindh's head), and "The Revolution Starts...Now". In these two, Steve leads with his left, and puts his politics up front - which these days is more than worthy of praise. Steve has always been a strong anti-death penalty advocate (and has written some fine songs on the subject, particularly "Ellis Unit One" from the "Dead Man Walking" soundtrack - now available on his miscellany album, "Sidetracks"), but these two albums extend into the political world in general.

I think "Revolution" is the more successful of the two, and songs like "Home to Houston" about a truck driver in Iraq, and the accusatory "Rich Man's War" are very effective both in content and music. Not everything works; as others have noted, his reggae love note to Condeleeza Rice ("Condi, Condi") is a throw-away idea that should have been sung for fun, cut from the mix, and forgotten. But that's a minor quibble.

Steve Earle is on my personal "A" list, where the "A" stands for automatic: I'll buy what he sells unheard until I'm disappointed. He hasn't failed me yet.

A final note: Steve has a weekly show on Air America radio; the show also streams on the web, and the online archives contain PODcasts and .mp3s of previous shows for listening online or downloading.