Steve Earle
Country music. Beloved by rednecks, gun nuts and Republicans. About three different variations on the same chord progression. Songs about how wonderful god is, how awesome guns are, and how America is the most exceptional, perfect, greatest nation ever in the history of mankind. The white part, anyway. This is what I used to think country music was, and while some of it probably does conform to my poorly conceived stereotype, a few years ago a mate introduced me to another side of it.
Outlaw country was the name given to the anti-establishment, frequently liberal, far more interesting version of country music that developed as a reaction to the shiny moneymaking factory that Nashville became in the 70s. Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were probably the first, but it could be argued that earlier artists such as Hank Williams and Johnny Cash were cut from the same cloth. Steve Earle bridges the gap between the original outlaws and today’s version of alternative country - musicians like Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell - which seems to have become prominent again as Nashville has begun to churn out "bro-country," its latest horrific incarnation of country pop bullshit.
As a young man in the 70s he met his hero, the late, great Townes van Zandt and hung out with him as the legendary folk artist drank his way to death while writing some of the greatest songs there’s ever been, and he picked up a lot of his mentor’s songwriting chops. He also picked up many of van Zandt’s vices and, after achieving some small measure of financial success in the 80s as both a songwriter and a performer, spent the early part of the 90s off his head on smack. He nearly died, got arrested, cleaned up in jail and has spent the last two decades making some really good music, a mixture of country rock, folk and bluegrass. He’s a great lyricist and while his songs tend to focus on small town stories, his strong left wing views are also often present, particularly his anti-war stance, which he’s taken a fair bit of heat for over the years. Most importantly, he played the drug counsellor bloke in The Wire.
80s Earle does Letterman for crack moneyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oMsif1xHUg90s Earle pretends to be Johnny Cash as part of his parole agreementhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7YcKUzNulchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itznZs7Zpg42000s Earle thinks he's Chuck Dhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR80U_DQwFE
