When an artist, even one as independent and free-thinking as Steve Earle revisits the songs and legacy of their major influence, mentor and/or hero, it can be a somber, more bitter than sweet affair. When you add to that Townes Van Zandt's various demons--depression, alcoholism/addiction, and love/hate relationship with art and commerce--which match those that have haunted Earle's own life and work, together with the stark, honest content of Van Zandt's songs and his early death at 54 years of age, and you have a formula for a painfully faithful but lifeless "tribute." Thankfully, Earle is dutifully reverential without sacrificing the song's verve and passion. "Townes" works both as the next fine Earle disc, as well as the true tribute that Van Zandt's contribution deserves.
It's no surprise to anyone that Earle has a (to borrow a phrase from Anthony DeCurtis' fine feature in Sunday's NYTimes A&E pages) a "tortured" relationship with the memory of his early friend, who's influence was such that he named his son, Justin Townes Earle, himself a singer/songwriter. But all that weight, bad karma and sad psychology manages somehow not to get in the way on "Townes," so that Earle serves up these great, time-tested testaments to their writer's tired torments and his alchemist's ability to turn life's hard truths into golden, even transcendent songs.
Take the great "To Live is To Fly" with it's grim assessment that "living's mostly wasting time" and "everything is not too much, and nothin's too much to bear." The song settles on death as the final truth, but includes an ode to life out making music on the road: "Here's to all the poetry and the pickin' down the line. I'll miss the system here, the bottom's low and the treble's clear. But it don't' pay to think too much on the things you leave behind. Well, I may be gone, but it won't be long. I'll be bringing back the melody and the rhythm that I find."
Van Zandt, like Hank Williams and Bob Dylan, at his best wrote in a way that elevated the common life, embodying a lyric that on the one hand feels cliché and on the other is all too true. Played in simple, direct acoustic formats, guitar and mandolin, the occasional full band but more often a haunting harmonica wailing, a laconic pump organ, throughout Earle eschews the over-produced excess that left many of Van Zandt's original recordings mired and overwhelmed. With Earle singing the most influential and best remembered of this oft favored repertoire, whether sung by Emmylou Harris or Willie Nelson, "Townes" matches its established task by letting the songs stand in their own light.
There's a hopelessness at work here, of course. When Van Zandt writes of his desire to change his ways for a "Brand New Companion," it's obvious thatthere's little chance that he really rise to the occasion. "No Place to Fall" may hope for a lover to catch him, but it's the song of a man much acquainted with falling on his own, alone. So, of course this collection, lovingly, faithfully crafted, is going to feel a bit bitter as well as sweet. If you want the songs of a happy drunk who died too early, by might look for the songs of Harry Nilsson. Wait, turns out those songs may not actually be all that happy either.
Rich, simple country songs, elemental blues and country, it's clear why Van Zandt is one of the heroes of Americana roots music. Catchy melodies and smart lyrical turns lend depth to time-honored sounds and forms. When Earle plays the finger-picking lead into "Lungs," I begin hearing a dozen other songs that have borrowed that sound pattern, like Pure Prairie League, Fleetwood Mac or Foo Fighters. It's clear that Earle sees how Van Zandt was a primal figure on to some of that special "something" that feeds the wheel of music's growth and evolution. And, to these ears, it's clear that he's got it just about right.
Leave a comment