***In The Time Of The Time Of An Outlaw Country Music Moment- Steve Earle’s "Townes”
CD Review
Townes, Steve Earle, New West Records, 2009
I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music since traditional Nashville offerings or their offerings after about the time of the legendary Hank Williams and his generation received short shrift from me even in my country music minute, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre. It was the late 1970s, rock and roll, the music of my growing up in the 1950s childhood had run one of its course, and blues and folk the substance of my 1960s coming of age was, well, flat to my ear at that moment. So it was a time for investigating other non-non-non disco genres. Strangely now thinking back on it the music, the classical country music, the Hank Williams, Warren Smith, and crowd stuff greatly influenced that 1950s rock that I still have embedded in my brain and that I had heard, and rejected, in my father- side country background music that he listened to on the radio when the signals came through from the south.
After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and other more well- known country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of the man who Steve Earle is paying tribute on the accompanying YouTube entry above, Townes Van Zandt. And while, like I said, this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrabbled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes. And today listen to Townes through the medium of Steve Earle.
As the liner notes that accompany this CD indicate Steve Earle and Townes shared some common time together and Earle learned much of his trade at the side of Townes so it is rather appropriate that Steve has produced this tribute album to his fallen comrade. Townes led a nomad live, have some very peculiar ideas about life, and about how it was to be lived but he knew how to write songs. Songs of sorrows, songs of grief, songs of lost loves and lost opportunities. And even a few “happy” ones, although those do not stand the test of time as well as the more moody ones. And in his own way Steve Earle has captured those emotions, and in his own style. That style on some songs is seemingly very close in voice and sound to some of Bruce Springsteen’s later folk-oriented work.
The stick outs here are the hauntingly beautiful Colorado Girl; the lyrical No Place To Fall; the hard-edged Loretta; and my favorite Townes songs, the wistfully symbolic, magically word-mastered (Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria.
CD Review
Townes, Steve Earle, New West Records, 2009
I have mentioned on previously occasions when I have discussed county music, or rather more correctly outlaw country music since traditional Nashville offerings or their offerings after about the time of the legendary Hank Williams and his generation received short shrift from me even in my country music minute, that I had a very short, but worthwhile period when I was immersed in this genre. It was the late 1970s, rock and roll, the music of my growing up in the 1950s childhood had run one of its course, and blues and folk the substance of my 1960s coming of age was, well, flat to my ear at that moment. So it was a time for investigating other non-non-non disco genres. Strangely now thinking back on it the music, the classical country music, the Hank Williams, Warren Smith, and crowd stuff greatly influenced that 1950s rock that I still have embedded in my brain and that I had heard, and rejected, in my father- side country background music that he listened to on the radio when the signals came through from the south.
After tiring somewhat of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and other more well- known country outlaws I gravitated toward the music, eerily beautiful and haunting music, of the man who Steve Earle is paying tribute on the accompanying YouTube entry above, Townes Van Zandt. And while, like I said, this outlaw country thing was short-lived and I scrabbled back to my first loves, blues, rock and folk music I always had time to listen to Townes. And today listen to Townes through the medium of Steve Earle.
As the liner notes that accompany this CD indicate Steve Earle and Townes shared some common time together and Earle learned much of his trade at the side of Townes so it is rather appropriate that Steve has produced this tribute album to his fallen comrade. Townes led a nomad live, have some very peculiar ideas about life, and about how it was to be lived but he knew how to write songs. Songs of sorrows, songs of grief, songs of lost loves and lost opportunities. And even a few “happy” ones, although those do not stand the test of time as well as the more moody ones. And in his own way Steve Earle has captured those emotions, and in his own style. That style on some songs is seemingly very close in voice and sound to some of Bruce Springsteen’s later folk-oriented work.
The stick outs here are the hauntingly beautiful Colorado Girl; the lyrical No Place To Fall; the hard-edged Loretta; and my favorite Townes songs, the wistfully symbolic, magically word-mastered (Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria.
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