Steve Earle says he had two reasons for coming out with this long-planned tribute to Townes Van Zandt now. The first reason is practical. Earle is currently pushing himself to finish a years-in-the-making novel, and he wants to see it in print before the publishing business goes belly up (according to Earle).
The second is a more personal concern. Like all artists worthy of the name, Steve Earle loves the truth, and in the case of Van Zandt, he sees that the waters are muddying before his eyes. Very often over periods of years, the truth first becomes myth and myth later becomes truth. In regards to his teacher, hero and friend Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle was not about to let that happen.
The Townes Van Zandt Steve Earle knew was large-screen and hi-def, a man of glorious contradictions, fearsome abilities and head-spinning complexity. Before Earle had careers as a rockabilly artist, young gun in the neo-traditional country movement, outlaw rocker, stone-cold junkie, and his triumphant rebirth as a Grammy-winning neo-Woody Guthrie and actor/activist/writer of prose/citizen of the world, he was a teenager literally in thrall of Townes Van Zandt.
According to an acknowledgement in the Washington Post: Low Highway covers a lot of ground. Earle’s marble mouth sometimes makes it tough to tell, but he laments homelessness on “Invisible, makes peace with loneliness on After Mardi Gras, riffs on rednecks on Calico County and contemplates torching a Wal-Mart on Burnin’ It Down.
The tunes are sturdy, and there’s a ramshackle charm to the performances, which have a first-take vibe. Even so, this is coffeehouse country rather than Earle at his edgiest. By the end, on the shamelessly sentimental Remember Me, he contemplates his legacy singing to his four-year-old son.
The 58-year-old troubadour clearly is enjoying the ride and wants to keep rolling.
Earle also brings back to life elements of Van Zandt’s life that are now fading into memory. There was Van Zandt’s outdoorsy side, also emblemized here by Colorado Girl, which was borne of Van Zandt’s long solitary horseback rides through the high Rockies. There’s the off-kilter humor of Delta Momma Blues and the Edvard Munch- like terror of songs like Rake, Lungs and Where I Lead Me, but also the gentle thrills of songs-to-plant-morning-glories-to like No Place to Fall and Don’t Take It Too Bad.
A few weeks ago, Earle told an interviewer from Rolling Stone Magazine that Colorado Girl was his favorite Townes song. Today, it’s Don’t Take it Too Bad. That’s not fickleness. Most Van Zandt fans go through a litany of favorite Townes songs every year, because he was that rare songwriter who could furnish you a different favorite song of all time for your every mood. What’s more, he was a writer whose palette of emotions ran to shades and nuances we haven’t yet named.
by Pamela Hulse Andrews
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