Excellent Steve Earle solo acoustic live release offers a glimpse of the hard-core troubadour doing what he does best.
Earle has gone full circle, back to how he started out; standing on a stage by himself, singing and playing. “Alone Again (Live)” is a solo acoustic offering, with the recordings culled from 2023 tour dates. Earle maintains that he sings better nowadays than he did when he was younger. It’s certainly evident that he sings quite differently to how he used to and the tone of his voice has changed. He’s a performer (and songwriter) at heart, one who is an absolute master of his craft. Are the performances here perfect? No, but then to expect perfection here is to miss the point somewhat.
Inevitably, Earle’s between-song chat is a feature; he’s always been very opiniated and you may not agree with all of what he says (not that he’d be likely to lose too much sleep about that) but it’s usually interesting, sometimes amusing (back to that point about being a performer) and generally thought-provoking. You may also have heard some of the tales before, such as the introduction to ‘South Nashville Blues‘ where Earle quotes one of his heroes; ‘Townes Van Zandt said “There’s two kinds of music; there’s the blues and there’s ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah‘” and this ain’t ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah‘.’ In introducing ‘Now She’s Gone‘ Earle says ‘This goes out to what’shername; wherever the hell she is’ then leading in to the next song, ‘Goodbye‘ he offers ‘So, same girl, different harmonica’.
You get the impression that Earle is thoroughly enjoying himself; during ‘Guitar Town‘, as he sings “Everybody told me you can’t get far, On 37 dollars and a Jap guitar” then exclaims “Watch” you can just about hear the grin he’s clearly wearing.
The tracklist is a great mix of songs spanning nine LPs, from 1986’s “Guitar Town” to 2021’s “Ghosts of West Virginia“. Of course, when one has access to the rich canon of songs that Earle possesses, listeners will always want some different songs included, but the spread here is good and includes plenty of his classics. All of the songs bar one were written solely by Earle, although the original (studio) version of ‘Devil’s Right Hand‘ credits the E-Street Band’s Garry W. Tallent with the arrangement. Arguably Earle’s most famous song, ‘Copperhead Road‘ which during April 2023 was made an official state song of the state of Tennessee, brings things to a close in great style.
‘Dominick St.‘ (a co-write with Sharon Shannon, the only song on the record not written solely by Earle) which transitions into ‘Galway Girl‘ is a short, at a mere 53 seconds, instrumental but in the sleeve notes to 2002’s compilation of stray tracks “Sidetracks” Earle describes it as ‘the sound of Joy’ and you can see what he means.
Another highlight is ‘It’s About Blood‘ which is an extremely powerful song, delivered here with an explanation of how the song came to be written; it’s about a 2010 mining tragedy at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia that cost 29 coal miners their lives and became the subject of a documentary play ‘Coal Country’, for which Earle provides the music.
This is a great album and a worthy addition to Earle’s extensive body of work. Whereas many live albums (whether strictly live or live with overdubs) fail to capture the ambience of a concert, this record has the feel of a high quality bootleg and is so much more listenable as a result; in effect, you feel as though you’ve been transported to the venue.
Currently this fabulous album has only a streaming and download release; please lobby your local record shop to put pressure on the record label to give it the physical release it deserves.
