ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
November 20, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Our journey down the Steve Earle memory lane reminded us of the extended period when he was producing some of the best americana and alt.country songs of all time. Between 1995's Train a'Comin' and 2004's Revolution Starts Now, it proved tough to limit ourselves to just a couple tracks per record. Heck, we could've included nearly the entirety of Transcendental Blues, which R&B selected as our very favorite album of the first decade of the century. As one of the foremost rabble rousers in all of popular music, Earle was also responsible for some of the strongest politically-themed numbers at a time when such a thing was considered passé. While it's truly unfair to represent the last fifteen years of his output with just one selection per record, we're drawing the line between very good and masterful. Steve Earle's recent releases have been interspersed with excellent full-length tributes to Townes Van Zandt (09), Guy Clark (19), his son Justin Townes Earle (21), and Jerry Jeff Walker (22), names alongside which he has earned a place. He incorporates the working class songcraft of Springsteen, Dylan's deep knowledge of American musical history, the generational storytelling of Townes, and an amalgamation of country, rock, and folk that is all his own.
STEVE EARLE: thirty favorites
- "Guitar Town" Guitar Town (MCA, Mar 86)
- "My Old Friend the Blues" Guitar Town
- "I Ain't Ever Satisfied" Exit 0 (MCA, May 87)
- "Copperhead Road" Copperhead Road (MCA, Oct 88)
- "Devil's Right Hand" Copperhead Road
- "Nothing But a Child" Copperhead Road
- "The Other Kind" Hard Way (MCA, Jul 90)
- "Goodbye" Train a'Comin' (Warner, Feb 95)
- "Tom Ames' Prayer" Train a'Comin'
- "Feel Alright" I Feel Alright (Warner, May 96)
- "Hard-Core Troubadour" I Feel Alright
- "Telephone Road" El Corazon (Warner, Oct 97)
- "Ft Worth Blues" El Corazon
- "I'm Still In Love With You" The Mountain (E-Squared, Feb 99)
- "Transcendental Blues" Transcendental Blues (E-Squared, Jun 00)
- "All Of My Life" Transcendental Blues
- "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)" Transcendental Blues
- "Ellis Unit One" Sidetracks (E-Squared, Apr 02)
- "John Walker's Blues" Jerusalem (E-Squared, Sep 02)
- "Jerusalem" Jerusalem
- "The Revolution Starts ..." The Revolution Starts Now (E-Squared, Aug 04)
- "Tennessee Blues" Washington Square Serenade (New West, Sep 07)
- "City Of Immigrants" Washington Square Serenade
- "Oxycontin Blues" Washington Square Serenade
- "Way Down In the Hole" Washington Square Serenade
- "God Is God" I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (New West, Apr 11)
- "21st Century Blues" Low Highway (New West, Apr 13)
- "You're the Best Lover That I Ever Had" Terraplane (New West, Feb 15)
- "So You Wanna Be An Outlaw" So You Wanna Be An Outlaw (New West, Jun 17)
- "Devil Put the Coal In the Ground" Ghosts Of West Virginia (New West, May 20)
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