The WELL: inkwell.vue.267: David McGee on Steve Earle: Fearless Heart, Outlaw Poet

#33: Ozro W. Childs (oz) Fri 18 Aug 06 23:53

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 23:53:00 PDT

Coming in a little late here, but one of my favorite local bands sang "Jerusalem" tonight, and it occurred to me, it belongs in a hymnal. The message is very appropriate today, but I think it always will be. [Read entire topic]

#32: a nose full of kafka (plum) Thu 23 Mar 06 20:19

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:19:00 PST

most enlightening. I've seen Stacey perform, she's a talented smart charming woman. Occasionally there's a little tinge of Nancy Griffith, but just vaguely. Holly I'll try to dig out a CD I have for you.

Toby Keith and Steve Earle seem to me to inhabit different universes (now that's an awkward word) and do not at all seem to me to be two sides of any coin. It's like saying Neil Young is the other side of Donald Rumsfeld or something.

Did anyone see the Townes van Zandt movie? Steve is in there a lot, and seems really sweet! I can't really recommend the film, since a large portion of it featured the camera pointing towards the sky and twirling around. [Read entire topic]

#31: David McGee (davidmcgee) Wed 22 Mar 06 14:01

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:01:00 PST

Holly, part of the 12-step program that Steve rigorously adheres to is apologizing to those you have hurt along the way, and I assume he at least done that with family members, if not ex-wives or any other acquaintances who had the misfortune to cross his path during those years of madness. It's too easy and there's too much evidence to the contrary to attribute Steve's behavior soley to his drug abuse. He wasn't always in a deep, dark dungeon with drugs, but he always was a driven, self-obsessed musician who was determined to make his mark. I think what came with that was a "user" mentalit that had nothing to do with using drugs but rather with using people to get him to the next rung, and then discarding them when he felt secure enough to go on alone, as he did so many times in the early days, even with people such as Tony Brown, who basically rescued Steve from oblivion after the CBS labels wanted nothing more to do with him. I didn't even publish comments from a former business associate of Steve's who had nothing but disdain for Steve--loves him as an artist but despises the man for the way he's used people over the years, especially with regard to the business side of his career. There were things this source told me that would have taken the book in a direction it was not meant to go, but should be explored by anyone else who attempts a full-on biography of Steve.

The interesting info I've been privy to recently is from a source close to the Earle family and to Steve, who claims Steve has finally read the other biography of him, "Hardcore Troubadour," and is sending out notes of apology to friends and associates of his who were interviewed for the book and had their comments twisted way out of context. I hope the first notes he sent out were to his family, because they were really hurt by that book's misrepresentation of their history. In my view it's a dishonest and factually inaccurate book--no source notes whatsoever, and I found the author was taking comments Steve made in liner notes, for instance, putting quotation marks around them and making them seem as if they were words Steve had said to her. Another source interviewed for that book told me he granted the author an interview based on the false pretense that she was writing a piece about his own new album--"I was seething," this artist told me, "but I answered her questions up to a point." So if Steve is indeed apologizing to people for what happened in "Hardcore Troubadour," I'd say he's doing the right thing.

To Cynthia, Bruce and Holly: I can stay here for the duration of this week, then I'll be away for a week or so and without internet access for a good part of that time, or only sporadic internet access at best. So we can keep this going through Friday, if there's any interest. That said, I appreciate this opportunity to talk about a book to which I gave a lot of time and effort to, and I hope I get an opportunit to return to this forum come the next book. Sincere thanks all around. I've really enjoyed this and the B.B. King forum tremendously. --David [Read entire topic]

#30: virtual community or butter? (bumbaugh) Wed 22 Mar 06 12:27

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 12:27:00 PST

Thanks so much, Holly and David. [Read entire topic]

#29: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Wed 22 Mar 06 11:50

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:50:00 PST

It's been two weeks since this conversation launched, and we've just begun a new interview here in Inkwell. That doesn't mean this discussion has to stop, of course. You're welcome to continue as long as you wish, David, the topic will remain open for further posts indefinitely.

If you have to get moving, we understand. Thank you so much for joining us, and thank you, Holly, for leading the discussion. [Read entire topic]

#28: Holly Tedford (hollyt) Tue 21 Mar 06 10:56

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:56:00 PST

Steve hurt a lot of people while he was using, as addicts are wont to do. Do you know if he "made amends" in some way to any of them? Or apologized for some of his behavior? Did any of the people you interviewed mention him doing this?

It seems that a lot of this behavior was typical of Steve in general however, and not just the drugs. What's your take on that?

Thanks for the update on Stacey. I've never heard her music but it sounds like stuff I would like so I plan to check it out. [Read entire topic]

#27: David McGee (davidmcgee) Mon 20 Mar 06 14:17

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:17:00 PST

Thanks for that tidbit, Joyce. Stacey and Mark were together at that time, but why he wasn't performing with her is a mystery to me--I can only guess that he had a chance to make some money touring with someone else, because they have been a duo almost from the time they started playing together in the early '90s. It's nice to hear Steve came out and took the audience to task for the way it responded to Stacey, and I'm sure it made her feel better to hear him standing up for her. [Read entire topic]

#26: Joyce Richards (joyceincali) Mon 20 Mar 06 09:02

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:02:00 PST

Stacey opened for Steve at the HOB in LA in 1999, I think. August 24. She got booed by the suits who were there to see Steve, but he came out and chastised them. Mark wasn't there. I'm not sure they were married yet. [Read entire topic]

#25: David McGee (davidmcgee) Sun 19 Mar 06 17:30

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 17:30:00 PST

Steve wouldn't argue about the Byrds/Dylan influences, and a case can be made (as I tried to do) that the Beatles circa "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver" are profound influences, lyrically and, with Ray Kennedy's help in the studio, sonically as well, especially on the album you reference, "Transcendental Blues." I don't know that I would term "Galway Girl" an example of self-plagiarism. It's a more traditional Irish song than "Johnny," which is, to quote the Pogues' Philip Chevron, "Irish music with a punk rock kick in the arse." "Dixieland" is closer in feel, sound and spirit to "Johnny," but it's also far more traditional than the latter. Both, though, are rooted in actual historical events and in the case of "Dixieland," Steve cites actual participants in the Civil War.

I guess music needs and has always had the good buys/bad guys duality going on and yours is an astute observation about Toby/Steve being playing those roles in contemporary country. Yes, Toby is fully invested in and embraced by the country mainstream--industry and fans alike--whereas Steve is very much the outsider whose records probably aren't even promoted to mainstream country radio anymore, nor should they be. Toby's been fairly vocal in his career about the inequities of the Nashville system when it comes to breaking new artists, just as Steve was in his early years, when he regularly criticized country radio and even his own label for not getting behind his style of country music, which he felt was a harbinger of a new day for the genre and should be promoted as such. The difference is that Toby, whatever he says of a critical nature about Nashville and the industry, still plays the game. I met Toby once at a press meet-and-greet here in New York City, at which he was introducing some songs from his new album in a brief acoustic set with only his guitarist being along for the ride. I was looking forward to meeting him, because I have enjoyed some of his music over the years, but also because we are both former University of Oklahoma athletes--Toby was a football player, I played basketball. He couldn't have been more obnoxious and condescending to a fellow Okie, and he was surrounded by the sleaziest kind of ad agency execs imaginable (he apparently had just signed a deal to endorse some product), guys who normally wouldn't allow themselves to be seen in any kind of proximity to a guy wearing a cowboy hat and blue jeans except that this one was a money machine for them. Now, Steve has sold one of his songs to Chevy for a truck commercial, but I'm willing to be that that deal was struck at arm's length, with Steve having little if any involvement in it, and not having any of those ad agency sleazes hovering around him. In fact the deal wasn't even officially announced. The commercial just showed up one day, and the fanatics at steveearle.net were howling unmercifully about it. To my knowledge, Steve has never commented. But I can tell you, he needed the money, because he always needs money.

I don't have much information about Steve's children, except that the oldest, Justin Townes Earle (named after Townes Van Zandt), has designs on his own career as a singer songwriter, and does possess some raw talent as such. You can see him in the documentary "All American Boy," performing at a club. He's not bad. The other two have kept low profiles, and I'm not sure to what degree Steve is involved in their lives. There was a rumor circulating at the end of last year that Allison Moorer was already pregnant by Steve, but that appears to be unfounded.

Yes, Stacey is his sister, and she's terrific. She and her husband Mark Stuart tour around as a duo--Mark's a first-rate writer and guitarist himself--and play a circuit of folk clubs in the States and in Canada, and they go to Europe a couple of times a year. Stacey has her own label, Gearle Records, and a website, staceyearle,net, where you can find out more about her and Mark's activities. I think Stacey would have had some kind of career even without the Earle name, because some of her songs are really exquisite. Mostly she writes about good love, bad love, and the ups and downs in relationships, and some have criticized her for having too narrow a focus. She says she writes what she knows about--she was a mother at 16, and that's the story of her life. She doesn't have much experience in the work force, and she's not political as such. But like Steve she's a born storyteller, and I think in time she'll offer some new wrinkles in her standard songwriting approach. She and Mark work very hard at their music, driving from gig to gig all over the continent, sometimes sleeping in their van, making their own records on a skimpy budget, and staying on the road most of the year. She and Mark claim they are doing exactly what they want to do, and are very happy with their lot in life, although they would like to get some fatter paychecks along the way. She doesn't try to gain any advantage professionally from being Steve's sister--in concert if she mentions him at all she'll say something like, "My brother said..." but I have never heard her mention him by name in the four times I've seen her perform live. Steve has been intermittently supportive of her and Mark's efforts, but he's also been, as Mark put it, "kind of a jerk" at other times too. They've all played together at benefits, but Steve has never offered to take them on the road with him as an opening act, which would be a big boost for his sister and brother-in-law. Nevertheless they have a close and caring relationship, despite the limits Steve seems to put on it. Seems like nothing is ever simple in the Earle family, and that's been true for a long, long time. [Read entire topic]

#24: Sharon Lynne Fisher (slf) Sat 18 Mar 06 08:54

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 08:54:00 PST

Another thing -- something I've noticed over the years is a kind of paired good guy/bad guy thing of artists of a similar genre at a similar time in a similar ecological niche. I'm thinking of Rolling Stones/Beatles, Michael Jackson/Prince, etc. And I feel a similar pairing about Steve Earle/Toby Keith. Toby's got his bad boy side (cf. 'smoking weed with Willie') but he seems to be more accepted as a country artist in general, and while he's notorious for songs like Red, White and Blue, he actually identifies as a Democrat and has a bit of a protest side as well. Plus, ironically, it seems like Steve Earle's romantic songs are more the 'let's be together forever, or at least as long as it lasts' type, while Toby's got a number of "I'm just looking to get laid" songs.

Another question -- what's the status of Steve Earle's kids? How many does he have, how old are they, what's going on with them, do any of them seem to show any indications of being musical?

I gather Stacy Earle is his sister? I wonder how much attention she'd have gotten on her own, and does she have the same sort of reputation? [Read entire topic]