Earle Steve & The Dukes

3 bonus tracks.<br/><br/>Som titeln antyder är nya plattan en hyllning till läromästaren och vännen Jerry Jeff Walker, som dog hösten 2020, 78 år gammal. <br/><br/>Med "Jerry Jeff" kompletterar Steve Earle den serie hyllningsplattor som inleddes med 2009 års "Townes" (Townes van Zandt), fortsatte med 2029 års "Guy" (Guy Clark) och som nu avslutas med "Jerry Jeff".<br/><br/>2021 gav Steve Earle dessutom ut "J.T.", en fin men smärtsam hyllningen till sonen Justin Townes Earle, som dog 2020, endast 38 år.<br/><br/>"The records were recorded and released in the order in which they left this world. But make no mistake - it was Jerry Jeff Walker who came first," says Earle.<br/> <br/>Earle was 14 when he first heard Walker. His high school drama teacher gave him a copy of "Mr. Bojangles," Walker's classic ballad about an unforgettable character he met in a New Orleans jail. After Earle moved to Nashville in the 1970s, he had the opportunity to get to know Walker, who enlisted him as his designated driver.<br/>"There's a tendency to think of Jerry Jeff around a relationship to one song," Earle says, referring to "Mr. Bojangles," which was covered by everyone from Bob Dylan to Sammy Davis Jr. "He was also such a great interpreter of other people's songs. But my main purpose in recording this album was to remind people that he wrote a lot of fucking great songs."

Justin Townes Earle left this world a little over a mile from where he came in, having seen more of it than most folks in his thirty-eight years before his all too short arc brought him right back to where he started from; Nashville, Tennessee. <br/><br/>The evening Justin was born, in what was then called Baptist Hospital, his mother, Carol, exhausted after 36 hours in labor fell immediately into a deep sleep and I was left staring into the eyes of my first-born son. After a while, a kindly nurse asked if I would like to carry him to the nursery myself. I don't know how I ever negotiated the walk down the hall without tripping over my own two feet. I couldn't take my eyes off him and he looked right back at me, hardly blinking, as if to say, "I know you." After a bit of a gentle tug-of-war at the nursery door I reluctantly relinquished custody to the nurse. <br/><br/>My arms had never felt so empty. <br/><br/>Suddenly it occurred to me that I hadn't spoken to any of my family back in Texas since I'd phoned early the day before to let them know that Carol was in labor and we were headed for the hospital. <br/><br/>I beelined for the payphones in the waiting room and was relieved to find a quarter in my pocket (not a given at that point in my career). I dropped it in the slot and dialed my parents' number in Houston. My Dad answered and immediately upon hearing his voice, I burst into tears and apologized for every shitty thing I'd ever said or done to him, which was a litany. <br/><br/>Carol and I split up when Justin was 3 and he shuttled between our households, sometimes voluntarily sometimes not, until he left home. That event occurred pretty organically when he accompanied me on a teaching sabbatical to the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. <br/><br/>Justin was playing by that time, having gone from post-mortem Nirvana fan to acoustic blues practitioner by way of Kurt Cobain's WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT. He'd only been interested in electric guitar until seeing Cobain hunched over the big Martin acoustic on MTV Unplugged so I pointed him towards the original recorded version in my record collection. Leadbelly was next to Lightnin' Hopkins and Lightnin' next to Mance Lipscomb and next thing I knew he was playing stuff I'd been trying to sort out for years. The original idea of Justin going to Chicago (besides just keeping an eye on him) was that he would take a few classes at the Old Town School, but within a few weeks he was TEACHING fingerstyle guitar. By the time I completed my eight-week course and returned home Justin had turned 18 and elected to remain behind. <br/><br/>He was back in Nashville six months later and, musically, things began to develop rapidly. A jug band, a rock band, a short stint as a Duke, but, lo and behold he'd begun to come up with songs of his own and they were really fucking good. He would release 8 full length albums and an EP over 13 years during which our paths crossed infrequently, usually on the road. Ironically, we both sat out the last summer of his life in Tennessee, grounded by pandemic, unable to escape to the only place either one of us ever felt at home. The Highway. <br/><br/>We spoke often those last few months, saw each other a handful of times and I talked to him the night he died. I am grateful for that. This record is called J.T. because he was never called anything else until he was nearly grown. Well, when he was little, I called him Cowboy. For better or worse, right or wrong, I loved Justin Townes Earle more than anything else on this earth. That being said, I made this record, like every other record I've ever made... for me. It was the only way I knew to say goodbye. <br/><br/>See you when I get there, Cowboy,<br/>Dad

Earle Steve & The Dukes: Ghosts of W.V. 2020 [Digipack / CD]

Justin Townes Earle left this world a little over a mile from where he came in, having seen more of it than most folks in his thirty-eight years before his all too short arc brought him right back to where he started from; Nashville, Tennessee. <br/><br/>The evening Justin was born, in what was then called Baptist Hospital, his mother, Carol, exhausted after 36 hours in labor fell immediately into a deep sleep and I was left staring into the eyes of my first-born son. After a while, a kindly nurse asked if I would like to carry him to the nursery myself. I don't know how I ever negotiated the walk down the hall without tripping over my own two feet. I couldn't take my eyes off him and he looked right back at me, hardly blinking, as if to say, "I know you." After a bit of a gentle tug-of-war at the nursery door I reluctantly relinquished custody to the nurse. <br/><br/>My arms had never felt so empty. <br/><br/>Suddenly it occurred to me that I hadn't spoken to any of my family back in Texas since I'd phoned early the day before to let them know that Carol was in labor and we were headed for the hospital. <br/><br/>I beelined for the payphones in the waiting room and was relieved to find a quarter in my pocket (not a given at that point in my career). I dropped it in the slot and dialed my parents' number in Houston. My Dad answered and immediately upon hearing his voice, I burst into tears and apologized for every shitty thing I'd ever said or done to him, which was a litany. <br/><br/>Carol and I split up when Justin was 3 and he shuttled between our households, sometimes voluntarily sometimes not, until he left home. That event occurred pretty organically when he accompanied me on a teaching sabbatical to the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. <br/><br/>Justin was playing by that time, having gone from post-mortem Nirvana fan to acoustic blues practitioner by way of Kurt Cobain's WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT. He'd only been interested in electric guitar until seeing Cobain hunched over the big Martin acoustic on MTV Unplugged so I pointed him towards the original recorded version in my record collection. Leadbelly was next to Lightnin' Hopkins and Lightnin' next to Mance Lipscomb and next thing I knew he was playing stuff I'd been trying to sort out for years. The original idea of Justin going to Chicago (besides just keeping an eye on him) was that he would take a few classes at the Old Town School, but within a few weeks he was TEACHING fingerstyle guitar. By the time I completed my eight-week course and returned home Justin had turned 18 and elected to remain behind. <br/><br/>He was back in Nashville six months later and, musically, things began to develop rapidly. A jug band, a rock band, a short stint as a Duke, but, lo and behold he'd begun to come up with songs of his own and they were really fucking good. He would release 8 full length albums and an EP over 13 years during which our paths crossed infrequently, usually on the road. Ironically, we both sat out the last summer of his life in Tennessee, grounded by pandemic, unable to escape to the only place either one of us ever felt at home. The Highway. <br/><br/>We spoke often those last few months, saw each other a handful of times and I talked to him the night he died. I am grateful for that. This record is called J.T. because he was never called anything else until he was nearly grown. Well, when he was little, I called him Cowboy. For better or worse, right or wrong, I loved Justin Townes Earle more than anything else on this earth. That being said, I made this record, like every other record I've ever made... for me. It was the only way I knew to say goodbye. <br/><br/>See you when I get there, Cowboy,<br/>Dad

Justin Townes Earle left this world a little over a mile from where he came in, having seen more of it than most folks in his thirty-eight years before his all too short arc brought him right back to where he started from; Nashville, Tennessee. <br/><br/>The evening Justin was born, in what was then called Baptist Hospital, his mother, Carol, exhausted after 36 hours in labor fell immediately into a deep sleep and I was left staring into the eyes of my first-born son. After a while, a kindly nurse asked if I would like to carry him to the nursery myself. I don't know how I ever negotiated the walk down the hall without tripping over my own two feet. I couldn't take my eyes off him and he looked right back at me, hardly blinking, as if to say, "I know you." After a bit of a gentle tug-of-war at the nursery door I reluctantly relinquished custody to the nurse. <br/><br/>My arms had never felt so empty. <br/><br/>Suddenly it occurred to me that I hadn't spoken to any of my family back in Texas since I'd phoned early the day before to let them know that Carol was in labor and we were headed for the hospital. <br/><br/>I beelined for the payphones in the waiting room and was relieved to find a quarter in my pocket (not a given at that point in my career). I dropped it in the slot and dialed my parents' number in Houston. My Dad answered and immediately upon hearing his voice, I burst into tears and apologized for every shitty thing I'd ever said or done to him, which was a litany. <br/><br/>Carol and I split up when Justin was 3 and he shuttled between our households, sometimes voluntarily sometimes not, until he left home. That event occurred pretty organically when he accompanied me on a teaching sabbatical to the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. <br/><br/>Justin was playing by that time, having gone from post-mortem Nirvana fan to acoustic blues practitioner by way of Kurt Cobain's WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT. He'd only been interested in electric guitar until seeing Cobain hunched over the big Martin acoustic on MTV Unplugged so I pointed him towards the original recorded version in my record collection. Leadbelly was next to Lightnin' Hopkins and Lightnin' next to Mance Lipscomb and next thing I knew he was playing stuff I'd been trying to sort out for years. The original idea of Justin going to Chicago (besides just keeping an eye on him) was that he would take a few classes at the Old Town School, but within a few weeks he was TEACHING fingerstyle guitar. By the time I completed my eight-week course and returned home Justin had turned 18 and elected to remain behind. <br/><br/>He was back in Nashville six months later and, musically, things began to develop rapidly. A jug band, a rock band, a short stint as a Duke, but, lo and behold he'd begun to come up with songs of his own and they were really fucking good. He would release 8 full length albums and an EP over 13 years during which our paths crossed infrequently, usually on the road. Ironically, we both sat out the last summer of his life in Tennessee, grounded by pandemic, unable to escape to the only place either one of us ever felt at home. The Highway. <br/><br/>We spoke often those last few months, saw each other a handful of times and I talked to him the night he died. I am grateful for that. This record is called J.T. because he was never called anything else until he was nearly grown. Well, when he was little, I called him Cowboy. For better or worse, right or wrong, I loved Justin Townes Earle more than anything else on this earth. That being said, I made this record, like every other record I've ever made... for me. It was the only way I knew to say goodbye. <br/><br/>See you when I get there, Cowboy,<br/>Dad

Steve Earle & The Dukes album "Terraplane" är en stark uppföljare till 2013 års album "The Low Highway". Earle backas av sitt trogna band The Dukes (Kelly Looney, Will Rigby, Chris Masterson och Eleanor Whitmore) och plattan producerades av R.S. Field (Buddy Guy, John Mayall). "Terraplane" släpps som enkel CD, deluxe CD/DVD, digitalt och som 180g vinyl. Deluxe- versionen innehåller 24-bit high-res audio plus en lång intervju med Earle gjord av journalisten Mark Jacobson. Dessutom bjuds vi på tre liveinspelade akustiska låtar och en "behind-the-scenes" film om inspelningen av plattan. <br/><br/>"Terraplane" har lånat titeln från en bilmodell från 30-talet som inspirerade Robert Johnson till att skriva "Terraplane Blues". Plattan är Earles 16:e studioalbum sedan utgivningen av den klassiska debuten "Guitar Town" 1986. <br/><br/>Som titeln antyder handklar det denna gången om en kraftiskt bluesinfluerad platta. Earle, som växte upp utanför San Antonio innan han flyttade till Houston, säger om Texas blues: "There was Fort Worth where the model was Freddy King, and there was the Houston scene which was dominated by Lightnin' Hopkins. Two very different styles". Earle såg båda dessa giganter live och lyssnade även flitigt till Johnny Winter, Jimmy och Stevie Ray Vaughn och Billy Gibbons. Samtliga dessa har gjort sina avtryck hos Earle, vilket tydligt kan höras på "Terraplane".<br/><br/>I sina "liner notes" till "Terraplane" skriver Steve Earle: ".the blues are anything but superficial. In fact, they run so deep and dark and close to the bone that folks walk around everyday with the blues as though it were perfectly natural for a human being to go on living with a broken heart. For my part, I've only ever believed two things about the blues: one, that they are very democratic, the commonest of human experience, perhaps the only thing that we all truly share and two, that one day, when it was time, I would make this record".<br/><br/>Trots allt prat om blues ska man inte förledas att tro att detta är ännu en platta med standardblues. Nej, det är ännu en uppvisning av den mästerlige låtskrivaren Steve Earle.

Limited edition, indie-excklusive blue & gold West Virginia vinyl.