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Steve Earle Goes Pop in NYC

All too often the kids lose themselves chasing The Beatles. What too few understand is that like any other style of music, The Beatles is a language. You can learn it (it takes years) and speak your own phrases in Beatle or you can take the half-ass route with the phrase book. The latter leads to note for note covers played a little louder than the Fab Four played 'em, mop-tops and other forms of physical imitation and useless instrumental homages within the context of otherwise feeble pop songs. Standing on the shoulder of giants, indeed.

 

Steve Earle has spent years learning various musical languages: the Texas folk tradition, hardcore country, bluegrass, Celtic-tinged metal, rockabilly, and southern rawk. A cover of ‘I'm Looking Through You’ on the acoustic ‘Train a Comin’ and the broad scope of ‘I Feel Alright’ and ‘El Corazon’ hinted he was chasing Beatle-esque pop ambition.

 

With his latest batch of fifteen songs he hit on it. But, as with any language, the translator can't abandon their mother tongue. So it isn't any surprise that the great sequel to ‘Rubber Soul’ and ‘Revolver’ comes in the form of ‘Transcendental Blues’, a beautiful mess of rock, pop, folk and country by a Communist songwriter as well versed in Lennon/McCartney as he is Hank and Lefty.

 

Earle always spotlights his most recent projects in performance, but never as carefully he did at New York City's Roxy on Wednesday night. Whereas the structure for a Steve Earle performance usually consists of three-quarters of a new album fused with the multitude of prior fan faves, this evening he built something new. Only a handful of the usual suspects made the lean (for Earle) two hour set. ‘Guitar Town’, ‘I Ain't Ever Satisfied’ made their appearances; he is, after all, fiercely loyal to his fan base.

 

And to their credit, the Earle crowd, notorious for blurting song requests, seemed cognizant of a new direction, generally keeping their wants to themselves. What else is there so say? Three of Earle's finest songs, ‘Goodbye’, ‘Someday’ and ‘My Old Friend the Blues’, were played, but for once they weren't highlights.

 

What arose was an emphasis on ‘Transcendental’ (sans the bluegrass workout ‘Until the Day I Die’, which tonight's unit couldn't have tackled) that spotlighted the album's craftsmanship and textures and rendered the obligatory Earle backlog extraneous. As presented live, one can appreciate the shift of the harmonica from its lifelong role as a musical embellishment into a fully incorporated instrument on ‘Steve's Last Ramble’, and the playful fadeout of ‘Everyone's In Love with You’, if for no other reason than the obvious relish the musician seems to take in their presentation.

 

Earle even looked the part, losing his statesmanlike beard for a bushy mother of a goatee and specs that suggested a funky fusion of Woody Guthrie and Malcolm x. Also shaved was much of his between song banter. Not that Earle wasn't a gracious host. He was full of the usual brand of wit, wisdom and anecdotes, but he kept the chitchat short. More than ever it was about presenting the music.

 

While his acoustic outfits (the all-star Train a Comin' band and the Del McCoury Band) should be considered separately, this band is easily Earle's finest set of rock ‘n’ roll Dukes. They lack the bluster that buried the music in the late Eighties and early Nineties, while still offering plentitudes of guitar crunch. The secret weapon: the presence of former Del-Lords and Blackhearts guitarist, Eric ‘Roscoe’ Ambel.

 

Ambel's slashy playing provides the perfect fuzzy counterpart to Earle's rhythm heavy fretwork, and he sings a helluva harmony too. Together they work wonders; as melodic as they are loud. Previous axeman Buddy Miller may be the most talented Dukes alum, but his otherworldly picking never quite gelled with Earle's muscular sound. This band (also featuring longtime Duke bassist Kelley Looney) was as nimble as it was thunderous.

 

The opening three tracks, played in sequence from ‘Transcendental’, displayed the band's versatile tongue: covering the rumbling rhythms of the title track, the psychedelia of ‘Everyone's In Love with You’ and the country shuffle of ‘Another Town’. Likewise, the trio of three encores (spare a final final encore of ‘Guitar Town’) also fit the language.

 

A surprisingly spry take on Nirvana's ‘Breed’, The Bottle Rockets ‘I'll Be Coming Around’, (which fits neatly into Earle's catalogue of stalker tunes) and The Chambers Brother's ‘Time Has Come Today’ found a range and appreciation of the pop sensibilities of others.

 

Rumor has it that Earle paraded around Nashville years ago boasting of an album he'd concocted in his mind, a hillbilly take on ‘Rubber Soul’. What so many misses about The Beatles language, particularly circa 1965 and 1966, is the genuine love of making music. Before the excessive complexity and eccentricity of the later albums, they were four white guys who dug the seemingly disparate strands of soul, folk, country and Elvis frickin' Presley.

 

Ever since springing from prison in 1993, Earle has resumed his career with a spurt of creativity and enthusiasm far greater than the days when he was heralded as Nashville's savior. But something else is going on with ‘Transcendendal’, something bigger. The title alone suggests a man at a crossroads with blue skies in all four directions. If Earle seems ecstatic, it's because he seems to have figured out the riddle.

 

And while The Beatles creative breakthrough opened doors to even stranger adventures, likewise, the anticipation will grow as to where Earle will head next.

ANDREW DANSBY

18.10.02

 

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