Review: Steve Earle

Opposites attract. The adage certainly applies to Allison Moorer and Steve Earle. The married couple performed Saturday night at Liberty Hall. Moorer is demure. Earle is brash. Moorer's voice is as sweet as honey. Earle's is as unsavory as the soles of a cattle rancher's boots. Moorer is lovely. Earle looks every bit of his 54 years. He's lived a tumultuous life.

Earle burst onto the languishing country music scene in the mid-80's with good songs and a bad attitude. Since then, a larger-than-life persona that includes multiple marriages, serious brushes with the law and strident leftist politics have threatened to overshadow his career as a musician.

In fact, Earle's chatter between songs provided a few of the most memorable moments of his nearly two-hour performance.

"Anyone's who's worried that Barack Obama is a Socialist: Don't worry." Earle suggested. "I'm a Socialist. Trust me; he's not."

Most people in the seated audience of about 600 seemed to approve. Several songs, including the harrowing coal miner's lament "The Mountain" and the anthemic "Jerusalem," also reflected Earle's progressive agenda.

Much of the evening, however, was dedicated to the life and music of Townes Van Zandt. Earle's new release is a collection of his mentor's songs. "I had a friend who was a teacher," Earle said. "His name was Townes."

Earle's affectionate recollections about the songwriter were bittersweet. In his introduction to "Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold," Earle humorously recounted that Van Zandt mercilessly heckled one of his early performances. Like the late Van Zandt, Earle once struggled with substance abuse.

"I should have known I was in trouble when Townes Van Zandt showed up to give me a temperance lecture," Earle joked.

"He is known for songs that are dark and scary", Earle said in his introduction to "Lungs." "If this doesn't scare you to death then you may be overmedicated."

Interesting but rarely riveting, the Van Zandt covers were a mixed bag. A straightforward rendition of the great "Pancho and Lefty" was typical. Earle simply wasn't able to add any fresh elements to Van Zandt's best known song. Only a spectacular reading of "To Live Is To Fly" transcended mere homage. Earle seamlessly melded his artistic muse with Van Zandt's in order to create something even grander.

"Townes used to say there are two kinds of music," Earle recalled. "The blues and Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah."

The evening could have used just a tad more of the latter. The combination of desolate songs and the solo-acoustic format threatened to grow wearisome. Earle's "Someday" and "Guitar Town" were two of the only songs that offered respite from an otherwise unrelentingly bleak collection of material.

Earle's voice contributed to the evening's stark tone. As with Bob Dylan, Earle's instrument has become increasingly gruff with age. It suits his world-weary songs. "My Old Friend the Blues," "Goodbye" and "Ft. Worth Blues" have never sounded more convincing or soulful. The change serves to confirm what many onlookers have long understood- Earle belongs in the pantheon of elite Texas songwriters including Guy Clark, Willie Nelson and Van Zandt.

While she's less accomplished than Earle, Moorer demonstrated that she's a fine artist in her own right during her thirty-minute opening set. The traditional country of "Alabama Song" and "A Soft Place To Fall" were gorgeous. Even better was a hypnotic cover of Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot."

"I'm seriously over-married," Earle later sighed. "In every way."

| Bill Brownlee, Special to The Star

Setlist: Where I Lead Me, Colorado Girl, monologue about Townes Van Zandt, Rex's Blues, Ft. Worth Blues, Pancho and Lefty, Brand New Companion, Tom Ames' Prayer, My Old Friend the Blues, Someday, Taneytown, Goodbye, Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold, Marie, City of Immigrants, Days Aren't Long Enough (duet with Moorer), Dixieland, long political speech, Jerusalem, The Mountain, Lungs, To Live Is To Fly, Guitar Town, Copperhead Road.

Comments

[jrmcrna]

copperhead road was bleak? how can that be?

[Bill]

As you know, jrmcrna, the themes of Copperhead Road are moonshine, murder, poverty, drug trade and posttraumatic stress disorder. That's bleak.

[Not the Alaskan Sun/Times]

bleak? boring? sounds like real life. Why pay to see that?

It is odd the "shows" which you reviewerS, all of you, choose to attend and review.

YAWN.

It is even more the odd the shows you choose to ignore. Maybe all you reviewers here deserve the bleak and boring, you ask for it.

so rah rah, lets here it for AI and the Jonas Bros, bring on Miley and Brittney, oh yah, go team, rah rah.

snore.

[JJ]

Not the Alaskan Sun/Times or MakesNoSense - What shows do you want reviewed? You seem to be repeating yourself.

[blee]

i wasn't bored or bummed out by the steve earle concert. being a long time townes fan, i thought he did his mentor proud by playing just enough of townes' work to get the audience to go find the originals for themselves. songs of depth like townes' have more layers than just the surface, as bill knows. i think this was just a matter of the reviewer not especially being as much a townes fan as a steve earle fan.

[Nivek9]

I liked the review and wish I could have been there. I was at the last Steve Earle show at Liberty Hall and really enjoyed it. Sometimes bleak is appropriate. It can't all be sunshine and roses you know. Art isn't just for the observer it is also for the artist. I for one am glad Steve Earle has shared his interpretations of Townes Van Zandt songs with us all.

[Cmdr. Dwight Towers]

well, all you bleak lovers should watch the movie "On the Beach", either version (1959 or 2000) will do.

http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=on+the+beach&x=10&y=8

[pellboy]

I like Earle and Moorer and like Nivek9 attended their previous Liberty Hall show in support of "Washington Square Serenade" but decided to opt out of seeing this one although I do somewhat regret missing the Townes spin on this particular show.

What truly bores me is not so much any of the music being discussed on this blog but instead all the tools who insist on denouncing what others are listening to. Talk about bleak...it must suck to be so miserable.

[Nivek9]

Read the book years ago Cmdr. Dwight....

[2bad]

it must suck to be you pellgirl.

[pellboy]

it must suck to be you pellgirl.

Posted by: 2bad

I'm hurt.