Early Tracks - Steve Earle

The Hard Way - Steve Earle

The Hard Way, Steve Earle s follow up to the wildly successful Copperhead Road, continues that record s melding of hard, Southern rock and stark country-blues-folk, albeit with a much heavier bias towards the former this time around. It is, as Earle himself states, the record that nearly killed him. Lost to the throes of heroin addiction, choking on self-loathing, The Hard Way is... well. Hard, is what it is. Honest. Bitter. Stark. Disturbing. The opening The Other Kind sets out the stall with a ragged, naked, molasses-black rumination on Earle s state of mind and body. "These days I been lookin in the mirror and wonderin if that s me lookin back or not" ...

Train A Comin - Steve Earle

Steve Earle s first post-heroin record, Train A-Coming is a revelation, particularly given the raging, distorted squall of much of the preceding album, the fairly grim (in tone, not in quality) The Hard Way. Where that album piled feeding-back, echo-soused distorted guitars one atop the other from floor tiles to ceiling, sounding even more of a Rock Record than Copperfield Road, Earle s breakthrough album from 1988, Train A-Comin strips everything right back. It is an acoustic driven, old time Country record. It is the sound of the young Earle sat strummin in Guy Clarke s kitchen midway through James Szalapski s much-adored 1981 documentary feature Heartworn Highways. ...

Train A Comin - Steve Earle

the prisoners where possible….” Earle’s post-prison albums, released in 1995 and 1996, are particular favourites of mine… If you will excuse me, I’ll quote Steve Earle from the liner notes of his SECOND post-prison album, “I Feel Alright,” before proceeding with this review of the first… “PERSPECTIVE [he writes, on the cover of “I Feel Alright”] When I was locked up, I was getting ready to go off on this boy that stole my radio. My partner Paul asked me where I was going. I said, “To get my radio – and then go to the hole for a little while.” He looked at me like I look ...