On the Shelf 142: Steve Earle
May. 13th, 2015 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedsitter23
Steve Earle has a new album out and its pretty good.
Earle has been prolific since cleaning up 20-some years ago, and the activity may not have always been the best for quality control.
He did seem to find his way on 2013's The Low Highway.
Terraplane is similarly strong. Only suffering in comparison to Earle's back catalog.
It's not as good as "I Feel Alright" or "El Corazon", but fits in well with some of the strong albums that came immediately after those. Earle's been around awhile, so he doesn't really have surprise left in him, and in a career that's now 30 years on, and releasing an album onm the average of ever other year, nearly no one could keep up that pace.
Earle says this is a concept album and that this is his "blues" tribute. I am not sure that makes much difference. It's not as a radical departure as his "Bluegrass" album "The Mountain". Earle has always had one foot in the blues, and there is here (as there has always been on his album) a blur of delta blues and traditonal country.
So it sounds like any other Earle album (in that Earle is always adventorous anyway), but it cetainly is informed by the blues, is filled with blues imagery, and it's best moments are when it goes furthest in the Blues territory- "Aint Nobodys Daddy Nw", "Youre the Best Lover I ever Had" and "Babys Just as Mean as Me". Even when he gets ambitious with something that on paper sounds like it would be woefully recommended like "King of the Blues" or "The Tennesse Kid", he generally succeeds. So while most would be best advised not to try and make a stake on the claims of Robert Johnson and others, Earle does prove why he's one of the great modern day troubadours.
Critics will also point out that this is a 'divorce' album. Marriage #7 has ended after an eternity for Earle (almost ten years). I will say that it probably does play into it some, and the best songs probably born from a playful bitterness. In any case, critics like to jump to conclusions, and it's hard to say, but taking it all on its own merits, it's really a fine album. Earle fans will be satisfied and I know I will give this multiple plays
