Steve Earle | |
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.jpg) Earle performing at theRudolstadt-Festival in 2018 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Stephen Fain Earle |
| Born | (1955-01-17)January 17, 1955 (age 70) Fort Monroe,Virginia, U.S. |
| Origin | San Antonio, Texas, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupations |
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| Instruments | |
| Years active | 1968–present[4] |
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| Website | steveearle |
Stephen Fain Earle (/ɜːrl/; born January 17, 1955) is an Americancountry,rock andfolk singer-songwriter. He began his career as a songwriter inNashville and released his firstEP in 1982.
Earle's breakthrough album was his 1986 debut albumGuitar Town; theeponymous lead single peaked at number 7 on theBillboardHot Country chart. Since then, he has released 20 more studio albums and received threeGrammy awards each forBest Contemporary Folk Album; he has four additional nominations in the same category. "Copperhead Road" was released in 1988 and is his bestselling single; it peaked on its initial release at number 10 on theMainstream Rock chart, and had a 21st-century resurgence reaching number 15 on theHot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, buoyed by vigorous online sales. His songs have been recorded byJohnny Cash,Waylon Jennings,Willie Nelson,Levon Helm,The Highwaymen,Travis Tritt,Vince Gill,Patty Loveless,Shawn Colvin,Bob Seger,Percy Sledge,Dailey & Vincent, andEmmylou Harris.[5]
Earle has appeared in film and television, most notably as recurring characters inHBO's critically acclaimed showsThe Wire andTreme. He has also written a novel, a play, and a book of short stories. Earle is the father of late singer-songwriterJustin Townes Earle with whom he frequently collaborated.
Earle was born on January 17, 1955,[6] inFort Monroe, Virginia, where his father was stationed as an air traffic controller.[7] The family moved toTexas before Earle's second birthday and he grew up primarily in theSan Antonio area.[8][9][10][11]
Earle began learning the guitar at the age of 11 and entered a school talent contest at age 13.[8] He ran away from home at age 14 to search for his idol, singer-songwriterTownes Van Zandt.[12] Earle was "rebellious" as a young man and dropped out of school at the age of 16. He moved toHouston with his 19-year-old uncle, also a musician. While in Houston Earle finally met Van Zandt.[8][11] Earle was opposed to the Vietnam War as he recalled in 2012: "The anti-war movement was a very personal thing for me. I didn't finish high school, so I wasn't a candidate for a student deferment. I was fucking going."[13] The end of the Selective Service Act and the draft lottery in 1973 prevented him from being drafted, but several of his friends were drafted, which he credits as the origin of his politicization.[13] Earle also noted that when he was a young man, his girlfriend was able to get an abortion despite the fact that abortion was illegal. Her father was a doctor at the local hospital in San Antonio while several other girls he knew at the time were not able to get abortions; they lacked access to those with the necessary power to arrange an abortion, which he credits as the origin of his pro-choice views.[13]
In 1974, at the age of 19,[7] Earle moved to Nashville and began working blue-collar jobs during the day and playing music at night.[8] During this period Earle wrote songs and played bass guitar inGuy Clark's band and sang on Clark's 1975 albumOld No. 1.[11] Earle appeared in the 1976 filmHeartworn Highways, a documentary on the Nashville music scene which includedDavid Allan Coe,Guy Clark,Townes van Zandt, andRodney Crowell. Earle lived in Nashville for several years and assumed the position of staff songwriter at the publishing company Sunbury Dunbar.[8][11] Later Earle grew tired of Nashville and returned to Texas where he started a band called The Dukes.[11]
In the 1980s, Earle returned to Nashville once again and worked as a songwriter for the publishersRoy Dea and Pat Carter. A song he co-wrote, "When You Fall in Love", was recorded byJohnny Lee and made number 14 on the country charts in 1982.[8]Carl Perkins recorded Earle's song "Mustang Wine", and two of his songs were recorded byZella Lehr. Later Dea and Carter created an independent record label calledLSI and invited Earle to begin recording his own material on their label.[11]Connie Smith recorded Earle's composition "A Far Cry from You" in 1985 which reached a minor position on the country charts as well.[14]
Earle released an EP calledPink & Black in 1982 featuring the Dukes. Acting as Earle's manager, John Lomax sent the EP toEpic Records, and they signed Earle to a recording contract in 1983.[11] In 1983, Earle signed a record deal with CBS and recorded a "neo-rockabilly album".[12]
After losing his publishing contract with Dea and Carter, Earle met producer Tony Brown and after severing his ties with Lomax and Epic Records obtained a seven-record deal withMCA Records.[11][12] Earle released his first full-length album,Guitar Town, on MCA Records in 1986. The title track became a Top Ten single in 1986 and his song "Goodbye's All We've Got Left" reached the Top Ten in 1987. That same year he released a compilation of earlier recordings, entitledEarly Tracks, and an album with the Dukes, calledExit 0, which "received critical acclaim" for its blend of country and rock.[11]
Earle releasedCopperhead Road on Uni Records in 1988 which was characterized as "a quixotic project that mixed a lyrical folk tradition with hard rock and eclectic Irish influences such asThe Pogues, who guested on the record".[12] The album'stitle track portrays aVietnam veteran who uses his family background in running moonshine to become a marijuana grower/seller.[15] It was Earle's highest-peaking song to date in the United States and has sold 1.1 million digital copies there as of September 2017.
His 1990 albumThe Hard Way[12] had a strong rock sound and was followed by "a shoddy live album" calledShut Up and Die Like an Aviator.[8][12] In August 1991, Earle appeared on the TV showThe Texas Connection "looking pale and blown out".[12] In light of Earle's "increasing drug use", MCA Records did not renew his contract and Earle didn't record any music for the next four years.[8] By July 1993 Earle was reported to have regained his normal weight and had started to write new material.[12] At that time a writer for theChicago Sun-Times called Earle "a visionary symbol of the New Traditionalist movement in country music."[12]
In 1994, two staff members atWarner/Chappell publishing company and Earle's former manager, John Dotson, created an in-house CD of Earle's songs entitledUncut Gems and showcased it to some recording artists in Nashville. This resulted in several of Earle's songs being recorded byTravis Tritt,Stacy Dean Campbell andRobert Earl Keen.[8] After his recording hiatus, Earle releasedTrain a Comin' on Winter Harvest Records and it was nominated for theGrammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1996. The album was characterized as a return to the "folksy acoustic" sound of his early career.[8]
In 1996, Earle formed his own record label,E-Squared Records, and released the albumI Feel Alright, which combined the musical sounds of country, rock and rockabilly.[8] Earle released the albumEl Corazon (The Heart) in 1997 which one reviewer called "the capstone of this [Earle's] remarkable comeback".[16]
According to Earle, he wrote the song "Over Yonder" about a death row inmate with whom he exchanged letters before attending his execution in 1998.[17] He made a foray intobluegrass influenced music in 1999 when he released the albumThe Mountain with theDel McCoury Band. In 2000, Earle recorded his albumTranscendental Blues,[8] which features the song "Galway Girl".
Earle presented excerpts of his poetry and fiction writing at the 2000 New Yorker Festival.[8] His novel,I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive, was published in the spring of 2011 and a collection of short stories calledDoghouse Roses followed that June.[18] Earle wrote and produced anoff-Broadway play about the death ofKarla Faye Tucker, the first woman executed since the death penalty was reinstated in Texas.[19]
In the early 2000s, Earle's albumJerusalem expressed his anti-war,anti-death penalty and his other "leftist views".[11][20] The album's song "John Walker's Blues", about the captured AmericanTaliban fighterJohn Walker Lindh created controversy.[8][21] Earle responded by appearing on a variety of news and editorial programs and defended the song and his views on patriotism and terrorism.[8] His subsequent tour featured theJerusalem album and was released as the live albumJust an American Boy in 2003.[11]
In 2004, Earle released the albumThe Revolution Starts Now, a collection of songs influenced by theIraq War and the policies of theGeorge W. Bush administration and won a Grammy for best contemporary folk album.[11][20] The title song was used byGeneral Motors in a TV advertisement.[22] The album was released during the U.S. presidential campaign.
The song "The Revolution Starts Now" was used in the promotional materials forMichael Moore's anti-war documentary filmFahrenheit 9/11 and appears on the albumSongs and Artists That Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11. That year Earle was the subject of a documentary DVD calledJust an American Boy.[23] It was also used in the"Andor Season 2 trailer".
In 2006, Earle contributed a cover ofRandy Newman's song "Rednecks" to the tribute albumSail Away: The Songs of Randy Newman.[24] Earle hosted a radio show onAir America from August 2004 until June 2007.[25] Later he began hosting a show calledHardcore Troubadour on theOutlaw Country channel.[26] Earle is also the subject of two biographies,Steve Earle: Fearless Heart, Outlaw Poet, by David McGee andHardcore Troubadour: The Life and Near Death of Steve Earle byLauren St John.[citation needed]
In September 2007, Earle released his twelfth studio album,Washington Square Serenade,[27] onNew West Records. Earle recorded the album after relocating to New York City, and this was his first use of digital audio recording.[28] The album features Earle's then-wife,Allison Moorer, on "Days Aren't Long Enough" and "Down Here Below". The album includes Earle's version ofTom Waits' song "Way Down in the Hole" which was the theme song for thefifth season of theHBO seriesThe Wire in which Earle appeared as a recovering drug addict and drug counselor namedWalon (Earle's character appears in the first, fourth, and fifth seasons).[29] In 2008, Earle producedJoan Baez's albumDay After Tomorrow.[30] Prior to their collaboration onDay After Tomorrow, Baez had covered two Earle songs, "Christmas in Washington" and "Jerusalem", on previous albums; "Jerusalem" had also become a staple of Baez' concerts. In the winter, he toured Europe and North America in support ofWashington Square Serenade, performing both solo and with a disc jockey.[28]
On May 12, 2009, Earle released a tribute album,Townes, onNew West Records. The album contained 15 songs written byTownes Van Zandt. Guest artists appearing on the album includedTom Morello ofRage Against the Machine, Moorer, and his son Justin.[31] The album earned Earle a thirdGrammy award, again for best contemporary folk album.[20]
In 2010, Earle was awarded theNational Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's Shining Star of Abolition award.[32] Earle has recorded two other anti-death penalty songs: "Billy Austin", and "Ellis Unit One" for the 1995 filmDead Man Walking.[citation needed]
In 2010–2011, Earle appeared in seasons 1 and 2 of theHBO showTreme as Harley Wyatt, a talented street musician who mentors another character.
Earle released his first novel and fourteenth studio album, both titledI'll Never Get Out of This World Alive after a Hank Williams song, in the spring of 2011.[20] The album was produced byT Bone Burnett and deals with questions of mortality with a "more country" sound than his earlier work.[33] During the second half of his 2011 tour with The Dukes and Duchesses and Moorer, the drum kit was adorned with the slogan "we are the 99%" a reference to theOccupy movement of September 2011.[citation needed]
On February 17, 2015, Earle released his sixteenth studio album,Terraplane.[34][35]
On September 10, 2015, Earle & the Dukes released a new internet single titled "Mississippi, It's Time". The song's lyrics are directed towards the state ofMississippi and their refusal to abandon theConfederate Flag and remove it from their state flag. The song was released for sale the following day with all proceeds going towards theSouthern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization.[36]
On June 10, 2016, Earle released an album of duets withShawn Colvin, titled simplyColvin And Earle, which was accompanied by a tour in London and the US.[37][38]
On June 16, 2017, Earle & the Dukes released his seventeenth studio album,So You Wannabe An Outlaw.GUY, Earle's tribute album to his songwriting heroGuy Clark was released on March 29, 2019.[39]
Earle was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the2008 Universal fire.[40] Earle was one of five artists who filed a class action lawsuit against Universal on June 21, in response to an earlierTimes report on the fire.[41]
Earle was the musical director for the 2020 play Coal Country about the 2010 West Virginia mining disaster where 29 men died. The play byJessica Blank andEric Jensen ran at the Public Theater in New York and was cut short by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. He was nominated for Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel awards for his work on the play's music. Songs from the play are on his 2020 albumGhosts of West Virginia.[42]
In 2021 Earle joinedWillie Nile on Nile's song "Blood on Your Hands" featured on Nile's albumThe Day the Earth Stood Still.[43]
In 2023, Earle said he is working on a musical of the filmTender Mercies.[42]
Steve Earle features prominently inLove at the Five and Dime: The Songwriting Legacy of Nanci Griffith, a biography of the musical career of Griffith by Brian T. Atkinson (Texas A&M University Press, 2024).
The Steve Earle Show (formerly known asThe Revolution Starts Now) was a weeklyradio show on theAir America Radio network hosted by Earle. It highlighted some of Earle's favorite artists, blending in-studio performances with liberal political talk and commentary. The show aired Sundays on someAir America affiliates from 10 to 11 PM ET. The show last aired on June 10, 2007, and that was a rebroadcast of a past episode.[44] Earle subsequently started DJing on a show onSirius Satellite Radio called Hardcore Troubadour.[45]
Earle has been married seven times, including twice to the same woman.[46] He married Sandra "Sandy" Henderson in Houston at the age of 18, but left her to move to Nashville a year later[11] where he met and married his second wife, Cynthia Dunn. Earle married his third wife, Carol-Ann Hunter, who was the mother of their son, singer-songwriterJustin Townes Earle (1982–2020).[11][47]
Next, he married Lou-Anne Gill (with whom he had a second son, Ian Dublin Earle, in January 1987). In December 1987, agroupie, Theresa Baker, claimed her daughter (Jessica Montana Baker) was fathered by Earle, though the initial DNA test was inconclusive and Earle did not submit to a second.[48][49] His fifth wife was Teresa Ensenat, an A&R executive for Geffen Records at the time.[12] He then married Lou-Anne Gill a second time, and finally, in 2005, he married singer-songwriterAllison Moorer with whom he had a third son, John Henry Earle, in April 2010.[50] John Henry was diagnosed with autism before age two. In March 2014, Earle announced that he and Moorer had separated.[51] Earle has primary custody of John Henry during the school year and then tours in the summer.[52] In an interview withThe Guardian, Earle said about John Henry, "I know why I get up in the morning now: to figure out a way to make sure he's going to be alright when I’m gone. That's my job. That's what I do."[53]
In 1993, Earle was arrested for possession of heroin and in 1994, forcocaine and weapons possession.[8][54][55] A judge sentenced him to a year in jail after he admitted possession and failed to appear in court.[56] He was released from jail after serving 60 days of his sentence.[55][57] He then completed an outpatient drug treatment program at the Cedarwood Center inHendersonville, Tennessee.[57] As a recovering heroin addict, Earle has used his experience in his songwriting.[58]
Earle's sister,Stacey Earle, is also a musician and songwriter.
Earle is outspoken with his political views, and often addresses them in his lyrics and in interviews. Politically, he identifies as asocialist and tends to vote for Democratic candidates, despite not agreeing entirely with their politics.[59][60] During the 2016 election, he expressed support for SenatorBernie Sanders, whom he considered to have pushed Hillary Clinton to the left on important issues.[61] In a 2017 interview Earle said about PresidentDonald Trump: "We've never had an orangutan in the White House before. There's a lot of 'What does this button do?' going on. It's scary. He really is a fascist. Whether he intended to be or not, he's a real live fascist."[62] However, Earle has called for the American left to engage with the concerns of working class Trump voters, saying in 2017: "…maybe that's one of the things we need to examine from my side because we're responsible. The left has lost touch with American people, and it's time to discuss that".[63] In 2020, he stated: "I thought that, given the way things are now, it was maybe my responsibility to make a record that spoke to and for people who didn't vote the way that I did. One of the dangers that we're in is if people like me keep thinking that everyone who voted for Trump is a racist or an asshole, then we're fucked, because it's simply not true."[63]
In his 1990 song "Justice in Ontario", Earle sang about thePort Hope 8 case. Earle criticized the conviction of sixSatan's Choice bikers for a 1978 murder inPort Hope, arguing that the accused were innocent, framed by the ruthless CorporalTerry Hall of the Ontario Provincial Police's Special Squad.[64] In the song Earle compares the conviction of the "Port Hope 6" to the massacre of theBlack Donnellys in 1880. In 1990, Earle stated in an interview about "Justice in Ontario": "There's some concern about reprisals because the O.P.P. (Ontario Provincial Police) is obviously not gonna be thrilled. My hope is that I'll be far too out-in-the-open and far too public for the police to do anything and get away with it. But the point is, that's not a reason for doing or not doing anything, because…I very nearly went to prison myself for something I didn't do, simply because a law enforcement agency didn't want to admit that somebody had fucked up—they didn't want to open the whole can of worms and all the other complaints that were constantly brought against theDallas police department. You can't stand by and let stuff like that go down without saying anything about it. And I think I especially have a responsibility to do that, 'cause if I didn't have any money right now I'd be in prison in Texas—I'm convinced of that. It was that close. But I was able to afford decent legal representation. And it comes down to the fact that people who can't afford decent legal representation—who are subject to something like this happening and turning out very badly—feed my kids. That's where my money comes from and that's where my freedom comes from".[64]
In 2006, Earle, along with other artists, held a protest concert against theIraq War.[65][66] Earle is a vocal opponent ofcapital punishment,[8] which he considers his primary area of political activism. Several of his songs have provided descriptions of the experiences ofdeath row inmates, including "Billy Austin" and "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)".[15] Conversely, he has also written a song from the perspective of a prison guard working on death row in "Ellis Unit One", a song written for the filmDead Man Walking, the title based on the name of theState of Texas men's death row.[67] He is pro-choice and has argued that rich Americans have always had access to abortions; he says the political issue in the US is really whether poor women should have access. His 2012 novelI'll Never Get Out of This World Alive describes the life of a morphine-addicted doctor in 1963 San Antonio beforeRoe v. Wade who treats gunshot wounds and provides illegal abortions to poor women.[68] Since his youngest son was diagnosed withautism, Earle has also become an advocate for people on the autism spectrum.
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| Preceded by | First Amendment Center/AMA "Spirit of Americana" Free Speech Award 2004 | Succeeded by |