![\"\"](\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/steve_earle-guy-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a>When Steve Earle\u2019s sometimes-mentor and friend for decades, Guy Clark, left this world in 2016, Earle commemorated the passing with one of his finest elegies, \u201cGoodbye Michelangelo,\u201d on his So You Wanna Be an Outlaw<\/i> record. Now, Earle has followed that sweet and succinct tribute with something more expansive: a full album tackling the Guy Clark songbook, Guy (New West Records). This new album serves as a bookend to Earle\u2019s other full-length tribute to a friend and mentor, 2009\u2019s Townes<\/i>, in honor of Townes Van Zandt. But Guy<\/i> is neither sequel nor footnote; the record reminds the audience that these songs live and breathe, and so does Steve Earle.<\/p>\nEarle uses the supple muscle of his current band of Dukes to power songs unbeholden to time and age, but firmly of the moment, in both his life and the world. This becomes most apparent on tunes with the largest deviation in arrangement. \u201cOut in the Parking Lot\u201d turns a wistful scene of post-show melancholy into a rave-up, teenage eyes drinking in all the life happening outside and after \u201cthe show.\u201d Earle sings this later deep cut with a grin and snarl worthy of his classic \u201880s work, with gritty guitar riffs and Brad Pemberton\u2019s dancing drums trading with Ricky Ray Jackson\u2019s steel.<\/p>\n
The takes on the classics feel like that favorite leather jacket of many years. Earle and the band sink in and appreciate they\u2019re still here. \u201cShe Ain\u2019t Going Nowhere\u201d has one of Earle\u2019s most beautiful ballad vocals, aided by stunning harmonies from Eleanor Whitmore (who shines throughout) and interlocking textures from Jackson\u2019s steel and Whitmore\u2019s fiddle, letting new light shine through cut-glass lines like, \u201cThe wind had a way with her hair, and the blues had a way with her smile. And she had a way of her own, like a prisoner has a way with a file.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earle and band turn \u201cDublin Blues,\u201d an insular portrait of a hungover morning missing a lover who may not come back, into a defiant stomp. Earle\u2019s vocal tears into this taking-stock like a prize fighter, shuffling back and bounding up to deliver knockout blows on key lines like \u201cForgive me all my anger, forgive me all my faults. There\u2019s no need to forgive me for thinking what I\u2019ve thought.\u201d A hypnotic bass line from Kelley Looney plays thickening shadows behind Jackson\u2019s pedal steel as it slips from dawn\u2019s light to neon and back again, leading band through the joyous explosion on the final verse. Earle sings, \u201cI have seen the David, I\u2019ve seen the Mona Lisa too, and I have heard Doc Watson play \u2018Columbus Stockade Blues,\u2019\u201d like someone who knows just how lucky he is.<\/p>\n
Guy Clark treasured other people: a look at the credits list on any of his records or his countless co-writes over 30 years, attest to that. The bookend to that \u201cDublin Blues\u201d is Earle rallying many of these friends on, of course, \u201cOld Friends.\u201d Earle uses the power of his special guests here to highlight the intimacy and fragility of the song, as stars as big as Emmylou Harris, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Rodney Crowell (plus Terry and Jo Harvey Allen) take verses like putting goodbyes in a bottle and sending them to sea.<\/p>\n
Earle also uses many of Clark\u2019s longtime collaborators on \u201cOld Friends.\u201d Two of Clark\u2019s favorite co-writers in his later decades, the man Clark introduced on stage as \u201cVerlon God Damn Thompson\u201d and Gary Nicholson lend beautiful, subtle guitar and vocals. Shawn Camp, another go-to writer and player in Clark\u2019s orbit, plays 3am-smoky mandolin and sings (Camp also enlivens \u201cSis Draper\u201d and \u201cNew Cut Road\u201d). Jim McGuire stitches the track together with hints of dobro, and Mickey Raphael\u2019s harmonica is a precision scalpel right to the heart.<\/p>\n
Steve Earle\u2019s music has always thrived on synthesis; his limitless appetites absorb everything that piques his curiosity and transmute them to the gold only he can mine. He turns what could have just been a deserved pause and salute to songs he\u2019s loved for many years with his touring band into something that stands tall in an almost unparalleled catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Steve Earle\u2019s sometimes-mentor and friend for decades, Guy Clark, left this world in 2016, Earle commemorated the passing with one of his<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[34,1145,1144],"class_list":["post-6978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-review","tag-new-west-records","tag-steve-earle"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>When Steve Earle\u2019s sometimes-mentor and friend for decades, Guy Clark, left this world in 2016, Earle commemorated the passing with one of his finest elegies, \u201cGoodbye Michelangelo,\u201d on his So You Wanna Be an Outlaw<\/i> record. Now, Earle has followed that sweet and succinct tribute with something more expansive: a full album tackling the Guy Clark songbook, Guy (New West Records). This new album serves as a bookend to Earle\u2019s other full-length tribute to a friend and mentor, 2009\u2019s Townes<\/i>, in honor of Townes Van Zandt. But Guy<\/i> is neither sequel nor footnote; the record reminds the audience that these songs live and breathe, and so does Steve Earle.<\/p>\n