According to social media posts on Justin Townes Earle’s official Facebook and Instagram accounts, the singer, songwriter, second generation performer, and Nashville native has passed away the age of 38. The news was released on Sunday evening, August 23rd, though no cause of death has been given at this time.
This time around Steve Earle’s charge is somewhat unusual. Instead of simply putting together a new album of original songs or re-recording someone else’s, Earle was conscripted to assemble the soundtrack for a play called Coal Country that ran at New York’s Public Theater earlier this year.
It was June 11th, 2019, and the music world was left in shock and anger after the publishing of an investigative report by The New York Times detailing the loss of an estimated 175,000 master tapes, and some 500,000 total songs in a fire on the grounds of Universal Studios in Hollywood, California.
Unless you’ve been living on Mars, you probably know all about the often polarizing political opinions of alt-country legend Steve Earle. One of the most outspoken and politically-charged performers of our time, he pulls no punches, either in his music, or on stage. But with his upcoming record, he’s taking a different approach.
It’s the often-used cliche to say someone died while doing what they love. For some, it’s a dream they wish upon. For David Olney, it was a reality. “Olney was in the middle of his third song when he stopped, apologized, and shut his eyes. He was very still, sitting upright with his guitar on…”
Putting one’s personal story into song is the timeless way to deliver music with resonance and lasting impact irrespective of whatever trends are hip in popular music, or whatever current events are roiling the world. That is what legacy Americana singer and songwriter Allison Moorer has done with her latest record, ‘Blood.’
The 2nd best thing about seeing Billy Joe Shaver live behind Billy Joe Shaver himself is the band behind him, including his bass player Tony Calhoun. Big smile, big sense of humor, and one heck of a master of the lower register, he put the mustard on Billy Joe Shaver’s Outlaw style of country music for the last few years.
If you’re a country music fan and are disappointed that your favorite artist didn’t get enough screen time in the Ken Burns film on country music, well guess what, your favorite genre did, and by the most revered documentary filmmaker of our time, and before rock n’ roll, pop, the blues, soul music, or hip-hop.
Canadian country and Western artist Colter Wall was one of the fortunate ones to be selected to perform for the new season of the long-running and highly-revered PBS music show Austin City Limits for their 45th season. And if you want to catch the taping, you better be on your toes because it’s coming up this Friday.
Making a collaborative album with some of the most iconic artists from Texas and beyond wasn’t exactly what Houston native Rodney Crowell had in mind when he first started out to write and record his latest record. It just sort of happened that way. This won’t just be a Texas record in name.
For the fifth year in a row, Willie Nelson’s annual 4th of July Picnic will be held at the Circuit of the Americas speedway just south of Austin, TX, and will include many long-standing invitees and Nelson family members in the lineup, as well as other special guests. The initial lineup for the nearly 50-year-old event has just been announced.
What started out to be a small and intimate alternative to Austin’s sprawling SXSW gathering every March, and that was only known initially through invite or word of mouth, has now become arguably the most important and exclusive gatherings in all of American roots music every year.
Once again Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Fest sponsored by Blackbird Presents will be rolling down the road, and they have just released the 10 separate lineups, dates, and locations for the 2019 season. Originally started as a one-off event in 2016, for the last two years the Outlaw Music Festival has been a touring affair.
“No way I could get out of doing this record,” Steve Earle says. “When I get to the other side, I didn’t want to run into Guy having made the ‘TOWNES’ record and not one about him … Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark were like Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to me.”
The 10th annual 30A Songwriters Festival set for January 18-21, 2019 in Walton County, Florida will take on extra significance this year, and not just because it’s the event’s 10th Anniversary. Located in the Florida Panhandle, and just west of where the devastating Hurricane Michael made landfall in October.
Perfection is certainly not at the heart of the appeal or staying power for Car Wheel on a Gravel Road. Instead it’s the sloppy, sticky, loose feel of it all, carried upon the words of Lucinda’s candid and real character recitations that make the record feel like the ultimate insight into the disheveled mind of the broken hearted.
For those fans of classic Bakersfield-style country, excellent songwriting from alt-country Gods, and unnatural illicit psychedelic substances, Dwight Yoakam, Lucinda Williams, and Steve Earle have banded together in a slightly-unintuitive, but nonetheless seductive lineup, and branded it the “LSD Tour.”
If you’ve ever sat banging your head to “Copperhead Road” or singing along to “Devil’s Right Hand” and wished you could see all those songs played again in cycle like it was 1988 all over, then you will get your opportunity when Steve Earle embarks with The Dukes on a 30th Anniversary Tour commemorating Copperhead Road’s release.
When you think of the modern country music landscape, you think of a clear delineation line between the independent and mainstream. However the songwriting credits for Miranda Lambert are the one clear exception. Looking through her list of collaborators, it’s pretty incredible.
You may have not known his name or who he was, but it would be hard not to notice the tall, lanky, dreadheaded dude in big white glasses behind the drums backing up a dozen or so different independent country artists from Nashville over the years as they toured through your town, and doing his best to not just keep the beat, but bring the energy.
Though like all true country music Outlaws, Steve Earle knows that the “Outlaw” term is not about how you conduct yourself in your personal life, but how you take a stance on creative control of your music. That doesn’t mean a more Outlaw lifestyle wasn’t apt to find the individuals who fell under the “Outlaw” term…
When Steve Earle threw Hayes Carll under the bus in mid June by calling Hayes a “younger, skinnier, less talented singer-songwriter” than himself, it set up a potential showdown at Willie Nelson’s annual 4th of July Picnic where both men were scheduled to play this year.
Steve Earle isn’t just your average aging thinning-hair post-mainstream relevancy Americana dude who was kind of big in the 80’s. At 62-years-old, he’s probably the youngest guy who can legitimately claim honest ties to the original country music Outlaw movement of the 70’s.
Let’s call it what it is at this point: Steve Earle is going scorched earth. Ahead of the release of his latest album So You Wanna Be An Outlaw, the 62-year-old alt-country songwriter isn’t just refusing to pull punches, he’s looking for targets. His latest are modern country, Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher, and the new partner of his former wife, Hayes Carll.