Graham Reid | | <1 min read
The final track on this -- Earle's 15th studio album -- is Remember Me, a moving message to his child who might never see him when grown. Earle, now 58 and with a three-year old, knows this possibility and such honest emotion (sometimes fueled by political anger) has been a hallmark of a career which looked finished in the mid Nineties when he was jailed for drug and weapon possession.
He's had a remarkable life since however – respected writer, actor, activist and a musician with a broad portfolio of albums – so has a deep well to draw from.
Here he gets into character in the front seat of a pick-up truck looking at small-town dreams gone sour (Burn It Down), Dylanesque rock (Calico County isn't far from Subterranean Homesick Blues but with working class references), Americana folk (the title track connecting to Woody Guthrie's dustbowl ballads about the dispossessed and abandoned), comes off like country-fried Cobain on Invisible and rocks out (the New Orleans-cum-rockabilly That's All I've Got with actress Lucia Micarelli from Treme in which he appears as the musical mentor for her character).
Earle's traveled these byways before but he's always a welcome visitor carrying stories, truths and memorable songs.
For more on Steve Earle at Elsewhere including album reviews and archival interviews see here.
Jeremy - May 8, 2013
There's a great scene in Treme where Steve Earle's character is trying to get Lucia Micarelli's character to understand why John Hiatt's song Feels Like Rain is a great song. I can't remember if she works it out or he tells her, but it's all about the song being timeless.
SaveAnd that's what this album is.
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