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Sunday, 1 June, 2008 7:49 PM
CMA New Artist Spotlight: Justin
Townes Earle
Photo
by Joshua Black Wilkins
Bloodshot
recording artist Justin Townes Earle
| By
Bob Doerschuk |
| ©
2008 CMA Close Up News Service |
It's too easy to explain
Justin Townes Earle's gifts as a musical legacy bequeathed by his
father Steve Earle. The sound of The Good Life reflects a charisma
and sensitivity that would distinguish anyone's debut album, regardless
of pedigree.
Earle steeps these 10
original songs in traditional Country, with fiddles, guitars, dobros
and piano that sound as if they've been waiting for generations
in someone's attic before being retrieved, dusted off and tracked
by producers R.S. Field and Steve Poulton. This sound suits Earle's
folk-flavored melodies and lyrics, particularly on the song "Lone
Pine Hill," whose Civil War narrative reveals a knack for rustic
vernacular writing.
Raised in Nashville,
Earle blazed his own musical path, winding from bluegrass to punk-inflected
Americana and cultivating enough bad habits along the way to be
fired from his father's band. He's cleaned up his act now, and while
traces of the music he's done before can be discerned throughout
The Good Life, they serve mainly to enhance a predominantly vintage
Country aesthetic.
In the proto-rockabilly
attitude that shambles through "What Do You Do When You're
Lonesome," the two-beat, Hank Williams Sr. feel of the title
track, the painful intimacy of "Turn Out My Lights," the
saloon shuffle of "Lonesome and You" and "Ain't Glad
I'm Leaving," whose honky-tonk redolence is enhanced by Chris
Scruggs' lap steel, Earle understates his performances in ways that
let the timeless feel and rare eloquence of these songs speak on
their own.
That's not an easy skill
to hand down. The Good Life, released on Bloodshot Records, promises
more rich music to come on its own terms, genes or no genes.
Q&A:
MUSICAL HERO
"Woody Guthrie."
INFLUENCES
"Woody Guthrie,
George Jones, Ray Price and Townes Van Zandt."
CD IN YOUR STEREO
"Mando Saenz."
BOOK ON YOUR NIGHTSTAND
"Suttree, by Cormac
McCarthy."
FAVORITE MODE OF
TRANSPORTATION
"Pickup truck."
On the Web:
www.myspace.com/justintownesearle
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