Most would not expect a person that dropped out of high school, took his first shot of heroin at 13 and went to jail for drugs to be much of a success, but then you would have never heard the story of Steve Earle. Earle is that kind of anomaly. When he first burst onto the scene in the early ’80s he was heralded as Nashville’s Springsteen. Now, due to his outspoken political stance he draws more comparisons to protest singers such as Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, both of whom are big influences on Earle.
He has since traded Nashville for New York City, addiction for sobriety and wife number seven for number eight. Now, he is a tour de force after nailing down two Grammys for his last two album efforts.
Touring behind his latest album Washington Square Serenade, Earle and his wife, folk rock singer Allison Moorer made a stop Wednesday night at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts in Oxford. The current tour, which started in January in Scotland, is in effect Earle and Moorer’s honeymoon of sorts – the first tour for both since being wed.
“I did a handful of shows on my own and waited until Allison’s record came out because we tour together,” Earle said. “We’re sort of seeing the world from a tour bus, which is what I’m used to.”
Moorer opened the show with cuts off her current album Mockingbird. Her voice has a haunting quality and the reverberation of it and slow, demure strumming of her guitar made the performance an intimate experience. Moorer, an Alabama native, dedicated her final song to a high school friend who was in the audience, the dedication spoken in her almost whisper-like speaking voice.
Earle came out in full regalia, waved a few times and began playing “Another Town” off his Transcendental Blues album. Earle alone on stage with nothing but his acoustic guitar and harmonica has all the soul and rhythm of a five-piece band turned up to 11. Working through his back catalog of songs such as “Devil’s Right Hand” and “My Old Friend the Blues” he warmed up the crowd with his classics before switching to his more current selections.
“This song goes out to what’s her name, wherever the hell she is,” Earle said, introducing the song “Now She’s Gone.” Switching harmonicas for the next song, “Goodbye Is All We’ve Got Left To Say,” Earle said “same girl, different harmonica” before striking up the first chord of the song.
Before launching into the somewhat autobiographical “South Nashville Blues” Earle said, “I reckon all towns have a side of town like this one.” The song, a somewhat firsthand account of Earle’s drug-fueled “vacation in the ghetto” documents his self-destructive romp through Nashville’s rough South side district.
Delving into the songs off Washington Square Serenade, Earle brought out more of his “band.” His current backing band consists of a DJ and a set of turntables, an uncommon sight to see alongside the mandolins, acoustic guitars and banjos of Earle’s.
The latest album took a new direction to writing an album, Earle said, but isn’t a different approach.
“Some kid unpacking a box of software and tossing out the owner’s manual and getting on there and pushing buttons isn’t any different than any of the kids in Greenwich Village in the ’60s buying banjos and doing their own thing,” Earle said.
The beatboxing and samples on the latest record were arrived at in an unintentional manner.
“The way I arrived at [using] the beats was I thought I was writing a demo. At first I needed time alone with these songs. They just sounded really good and the album became what the songs initially were, which is one person and the songs,” Earle said. “The whole album was kind of based on the idea that hip-hop is folk music too.”
Performed live, the new tracks worked well outside the environment of the studio. Some of the more stellar songs live were the modern southern drug biopic “Oxycontin Blues” which documents the damage done by the drug upon rural Appalachia. Earle’s farewell to Nashville, “Tennessee Blues,” is enhanced by the presence of the sampling and beatboxing of the DJ.
Moorer came onstage later to join Earle as duet partner on some selections including “Days Are Never Long Enough,” written by Earle for him and his wife to sing together.
Before moving onto his more politically-charged songs, Earle emphasized the change to politics by asking the crowd, “Y’all ready to talk some politics?”
The question received a loud applause and yells from the crowd, knowing that whatever was about to come out of Earle’s mouth would be interesting. He began to relate his impressions on the current presidential race, the country, immigration and of course the war in Iraq.
While singing “Pete’s Hammer,” his latest political anthem and tribute to the late ’60s protest singer Pete Seeger, Earle stopped in the middle of the song to ask the audience, “Are y’all tired of this war?”
Continuing on, Earle asked the audience if they believed music could stop a war and if they didn’t they weren’t alive during Vietnam.
“Music stopped that [expletive] war,” Earle said, referring to the Vietnam War. “So, I want everybody to sing as loud as you can and if your neighbor isn’t singing you sing loud enough to embarrass them into singing. You better sing loud ’cause it’s a long way to Washington and you don’t want anyone thinking you’re a Republican.”
After finishing the show with “Way Down In The Hole,” which has been selected as the theme song for HBO’s “The Wire,” Earle returned to the stage for an encore.
Performing a personal rendition of “Little Rock and Roller,” a song written for Earle’s eldest son, he relayed how this was his first tour without his father Jack.
The emotion was evident in Earle’s face as he paid tribute to his late father and commemorated the relationship between father and son.
Of course, no night would be complete without what is possibly Earle’s most famous song, “Copperhead Road.” Documenting the generations of the Pettimore family in the song, Earle was in top form as he wove his way through the new Southern gothic anthem. Finishing the song, Earle took a bow and greeted his wife who was waiting stage left.
The crowd in Oxford was receptive of Earle and his new songs and overall response has been good for his somewhat unorthodox approach to the latest album.
“I’ve thrown enough curveballs at my audience, so much doesn’t surprise them,” Earle said.