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Justin Townes Earle
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Brian Wise claims, 'I have seen the future of country music and it's Justin Townes Earle.'
JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE
THE TOFF IN TOWN
NOVEMBER 30, 2008
To hear Justin Townes Earle is to be transported to another era - that of the travelling troubadour. His debut album The Good Life features an array of songs that might have been heard in the Depression era, the 1940’s and maybe even the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, his concert performance reinforces that impression. (In fact, the songs sound so authentic you have to check the writing credits to make sure that they are indeed originals).
It is hard enough for any performer to engage an audience for more than an hour, even more difficult for a solo performer armed with just a guitar. Richard Thompson and Loudon Wainwright can do it too, while Gillian Welch can to with a little help from David Rawlings. Add Justin Townes Earle to that list, with a show stretched out to more than two enthralling hours!
Where many children reject the music of their parents, the 25-year-old son of Steve Earle, has not only embraced it but gone back even further to search for his musical roots. The honky-tonk rhythms, rapid fire delivery of the stage patter and the country twang of the voice suggest that in his quest Justin Earle somehow pressed the wrong date on the time machine and ended up hanging around with Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie rather than his namesake Townes van Zandt (though he still sings one of his songs) and Guy Clark.
Occasionally, you’ll here a vocal inflection in the singing or talking, or a phrase that reminds you of his father but Earle is very much his own man. Like Gillian Welch, he seems to have arrived fully formed, but we know that is not the case.
Earle may have shared some of his father’s self-destructive tendencies at one stage – and refers to this - and he does share his sense of history (especially on songs such as ‘Lone Pine Hill’) but he has established his own voice, his own mannerisms and his own appeal.
Earle the younger wanders around the stage, crouched over as if to pounce on some unsuspecting punter. He greets each ovation with ‘Thank you, y’all,’ (or something like it) and races through a catalogue of songs that stretches out until the time is irrelevant.
Music fanatic G. McNamara clocked it at exactly two hours and eight minutes and pointed out that this is the same time for the Olympic Marathon record! He also counted 26 songs. I counted 8 songs in the encore (the only longer one I have ever seen was once when Elvis Costello’s encore went longer than the actual show!).
What the statistics don’t tell you is just how engaging a performance Earle gave - far more so than that of his father only a few weeks earlier. Where Steve seem disengaged in the cavernous Forum, his son was right at home in this small club. As someone said to me, ‘You want to leave but you can’t can you?’ They were right.
I am fairly sure that Earle played all the songs from his debut album and Yuma EP and, if it wasn’t clear that The Good Life was the debut album of the year before the show it certainly was afterwards.
As he did when I saw him in San Francisco just a month ago, he played The Replacements' 'Can't Hardly Wait,' maybe as a demonstration of his eclectic taste. Other covers included ‘Mr Mudd and Mr Gold’ by Townes Van Zandt (‘the greatest songwriter ever’) and Buck Owens’ ‘Close Up The Honky Tonks.’ He even added a song that he claimed to have finished just a few days earlier at the airport when he arrived in Melbourne.
Earle also played some songs from his forthcoming album Midnight At The Movies, due out in March next year. This included ‘My Father’s Son’ which seems pretty much autobiographical.
The performance closed with ‘What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome’ (from his latest album) that was so moving that you could see people wiping away the tears. That’s powerful stuff, even more so when he had already been on stage for so long.
By the end of the show, which was well after midnight, Earle still had enough energy to come out and meet his fans and sign some CDs.
Justin Townes Earle invoked Nashville a lot during his show but these days the very mention of that city is enough to make some genuine country music fans cringe. Yet this show was proof that there are still musicians who revere tradition and can also create something new and exciting from its fertile soil.
One hesitates to burden Earle with praise but sometimes you have to give credit where it is due. To paraphrase a well-known saying, I have seen the future of country music and it is Justin Townes Earle.
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