Decade of Difference

After recovering from substance abuse issues that nearly derailed his career, Steve Earle began writing music again. His former manager collected this work and distributed it in Nashville. Steve Earle’s skills in songwriting were evident and several of the songs were recorded by country stars of the day. Earle himself recorded his first album in six years and earned another Grammy nomination.

Starting with 2000’s Transcendental Blues, four of his five albums during the decade placed in the top 10 on the country charts and in the top 10 of the indie music charts. Earle had always had strong political views, and those came to the front on his second record of the 2000s, Jerusalem. Written after the 9/11 attacks, the album dealt openly with Earle’s divided feelings about America’s “war on terror” and the West’s ignorance of the Islamic faith.

Steve Earle’s long career has produced nineteen solo and two collaborative albums spanning a wide range of styles. He has released a tribute album of songs by his hero Townes Van Zandt, a blues record and an album of music written for an off-Broadway show about the Upper Big Branch Mining disaster in 2010.

Sadly, his records also include J.T., a tribute to his son, Justin Townes Earle, who died of substance abuse problems in 2020.

At his induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Earle recalled how he got his start in the city – he hitchhiked from Texas and was dropped off by a semi in the middle of the night.

Happy Birthday, Steve Earle! The acclaimed singer-songwriter turns 67 today. Earle made his first impression as a country star with his first full-length release, 1986’s Guitar Town. The record topped the country charts while the title song rose to #7 on the singles chart. It also earned Earle two Grammy nominations, and it has stood the test of time, ranking on Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums of all time as well as CMT’s top 40 country albums of all time. Guitar Town was also one of the first country albums to be recorded digitally.

Steve Earle is a Commonwealth native but grew up in Texas, when his family moved before his second birthday. Rebellious as a youth, Earle ran away from home to search for his idol Townes Van Zandt. Dropping out of school, he moved to Houston where he finally met Van Zandt. At nineteen, he moved to Nashville, working menial jobs by day and playing in bars at night. After a few years Earle left Nashville to return to Texas where he formed his band The Dukes.

Returning to Nashville in the early ’80s, Earle had one of his songs place in the top 20 as recorded by Johnny Lee, and his first EP was enough to gain a recording contract. A series of well regarded albums followed with his peak record coming with 1988’s Copperhead Road.

Earle’s substance abuse issues stopped his career for years. When his addiction took over, he didn’t write anything for four years and ended up selling motorcycles, cars, guitars, and jewelry to fund his habit.

He lost everything except his house in Nashville and he says he is not sure why that did not go too – although it was uninhabitable and he was homeless for years. He was busted twice and served some time in jail, and it was not until 1994 that he went into rehab and recovery.

T-Bone Burnett is best known for his multi-Grammy winning work as a producer, working with Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison, and Gillian Welch, as well as Rhiannon Giddens, Imelda May, and Los Lobos.

Soundtracks have also played a large role in his career. In 2000, the Coen Brothers recruited Burnett as musical director and producer for the soundtrack of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and more recently he produced and played on the soundtrack for The Hunger Games.

This in no way diminishes his recording career. Beginning in 1980, T-Bone Burnett released his first solo album, after recording three as a member of the Alpha Band, a group formed from Bob Dylan’s 75-76 touring band.

T-Bone Burnett traces his musical roots back through his parents’ 78″ collection, which was diverse and led him to bounce between genres. His childhood friend, the late musician Stephen Bruton, was also an influence through his father, a jazz drummer and record store owner.

After seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, Burnett began learning the guitar, playing with Bruton and writing his first song. Burnett got into session work, appearing on the novelty psychobilly hit Paralyzed in 1968.

In addition to his Grammy-winning music production work and his release of thirteen solo albums, Burnett is involved in Code, an audio format intended to bring studio quality sound to CDs and DVDs, and a real estate development in Nashville aimed at redeveloping a stadium site into a 21-acre mixed use community.

San Diego’s Nathan Williams started Wavves as a recording project in 2008, releasing several confusing 7” and cassettes over the next couple of years.  Mostly due to his inexperience with the recording software, the tracks were mangled. Rather than abandon them, he chose to promote the work, accompanied by simple artwork or scanned photos. The press praised the immediacy and DIY nature of the work.

After gaining some traction, the band had a setback when Williams suffered a public meltdown, fighting with a bandmate on stage, insulting the audience and ultimately was pelted with bottles by the angry crowd. By 2010 the band rebooted and released a surprisingly polished and successful record, King of the Beach.

In the early 2010s Williams spent time with Wavves and several collaborative projects involving his brother Joel, the band Best Coast and a new group, Spirit Club.

The pandemic threw the band out of their normal routine of non-stop touring. Like most of the indie music world—those acclaimed and well-known acts who don’t need day jobs if they’re touring regularly—bassist Stephen Pope had to get a “day job” as an Amazon delivery driver. Even Wavves’ frontman Nathan Williams had to move in with his folks in San Diego.

“I felt out of my element a lot of the time,” Pope says. “I don’t thrive on routine. I was thankful I was able to land a job during that time, but at the same time, it was driving me crazy.”

As a teenager in 1950s Britain, Long John Baldry was one of the first local musicians to sing folk and blues music. In the ’60s, he was a vocalist with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated with whom he recorded the first British blues album.

At times the band included Mick Jagger, Jack Bruce and Charlie Watts and on occasion Keith Richards and Brian Jones played with the band. When the Rolling Stones made their debut in 1962, it was Baldry who organized a group to support them.

Baldry struck a friendship with Paul McCartney, and sang on one of the Beatles’ BBC television specials. Baldry added a young Rod Stewart to his band after hearing the artist busking a Muddy Waters tune. In his band Bluesology, Baldry featured a young Reg Dwight on keyboards. When Reg went solo, he drew his stage name partially from Long John Baldry, becoming Elton John.

After recording a UK number one pop song in 1967, Baldry found resistance in his band to performing a song so far removed from their blues roots. The band refused to perform the song, leaving the stage to Baldry who sang to pre-recorded accompaniment.

Baldry’s biggest record came in 1972 in a return to blues on It Ain’t Easy. The album was produced by Elton John and Rod Stewart, who each produced one side of the record.

In 1978, Long John Baldry relocated to Canada, where he continued to record and tour. He also performed voiceovers, including the role of Dr. Ivo Robotnik in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. A severe chest infection that Baldry fought for months finally killed the musician in 2005.

Here is a trivia question for you – what band featured Levon Helm on drums before The Band? It was Ronnie Hawkins’ backup group The Hawks, and when Hawkins moved from Arkansas to Canada, he took Helm with him and replaced the remainder of his band, adding new members who along with Helm would go on to form The Band.

Hawkins was raised in Arkansas where he toured and owned a nightclub. On the advice of Conway Twitty, he took his act to Canada, and the reception was so positive he moved there. Hawkins was highly influential in the early establishment of rock and roll in Canada, and toured extensively throughout North America. Hawkins peaked on the US charts in 1959.

Ronnie Hawkins rockabilly performances earned him the nickname “Mr. Dynamo,” and his influence has been long lived. In 1969, he hosted John and Yoko at his home while they toured on a campaign to promote world peace. In the ’70s, he pulled a young Pat Travers out of an Ontario club and put him in his band – a stepping stone for Travers to a successful career. You can see Ronnie Hawkins featured in The Band’s farewell concert documentary The Last Waltz.

Hawkins won a Juno Award as Canada’s best country artist in 1984 and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2004.

Steely Dan never fit the mold that formed most big bands in the ’70s. Usually the bands worked hard through the club circuit, established themselves in their region, then went national. Steely Dan did none of that. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, with the assistance of producer Gary Katz, shaped their accessible mix of melodic hooks, complex harmonies and time signatures in the studio. While they did initially work as a performing band, it was in the studio that their popular sound was crafted, supported by a cast of top flight studio musicians.

Donald Fagen and the late Walter Becker were the core of the band, formed after their meeting at Bard College. After playing in a variety of different jazz and rock bands, the pair began composing songs together with the idea of going into songwriting. Next they played in the backing band for Jay and the Americans.

Finally in 1972 they formed Steely Dan with four additional musicians, including guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. The first album was a success with two top 10 singles, but the supporting tour was not, mainly due to the poor preparation of the band.

Almost all of the Steely Dan albums in the ’70s featured a different cast of supporting musicians recruited to record and perform a single album. The members included Michael McDonald and for the jazzier records, notable jazz musicians including Wayne Shorter, Lee Ritenour and the Crusaders.

Their still was no working band, but the records were all big sellers. 1977’s Aja hit the top 5 within three weeks of its release and featured three hit singles. The album won a Grammy and has won praise as an outstanding example of a jazz-rock album.

In 1981 Becker and Fagen announced they were splitting up. Each artist released their own solo albums, and it was not until 1993 that the pair reformed for another Steely Dan album. From 2003 thru 2017, the band prepared more effectively for touring and launched several successful tours.

Walter Becker died of cancer in 2017, and Donald Fagen has been true to his statement after his death that he would keep their music alive by continuing to tour.

Born near Sparta, Tennessee, Lester Flatt was one of nine children. His father attempted to teach him banjo, but he was never able to master it and switched to guitar and singing. As a teen, he left home to work in a rayon mill and spent several years as a journeyman worker in mills in Tennessee and Virginia. After struggles with arthritis left him unable to work in the mills, Flatt heard Bill Monroe’s brother Charlie and his band playing on the radio in Bristol, Tennessee. Eventually he caught on with the band while his wife continued working in the mills.

In March 1945, Flatt quit Charlie’s band, and brother Bill Monroe offered him a job. Their first show was on the Grand Ole Opry – with no rehearsal. By the end of the year, Earl Scruggs joined the group. Fed up with the demands of travel in Bill Monroe’s band, Earl quit the Blue Grass Boys in early 1948, followed within two weeks by Lester and Cedric Rainwater.

Earl says that “When I got home, Lester called and said, ‘I don’t think we’d be happy going back into the mills. Let’s think about it.’ He said we could stay close around home if I wanted, so I could look after my mother.” Lester invested $3300 of his life savings into a car and a sound system and they were on their way. Flatt and Scruggs played their first show in Danville, Va.

Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs broke up their band in 1969. Lester took most of the members of the Foggy Mountain Boys into his new band, Nashville Grass. The new band outlived Lester Flatt who passed away in 1979. Amongst the notable musicians who played with Flatt in the band over the years was a young Marty Stuart, who joined the band as a 13 year old.

Lester Flatt’s long career earned him membership in the Grand Ole Opry and a place in the Bluegrass and Country Music Halls of Fame.

The late Earl Scruggs popularized a three finger banjo picking style, now called the Scruggs style, over his seven-decade career. Scruggs began as a 21-year-old hired to play with Bill Monroe in the Blue Grass Boys, the band whose name became shorthand for the genre of music – bluegrass.

Scruggs was born and raised in North Carolina in a musical family where everyone played something, starting with his mother’s pump organ. As a young boy he heard a banjo player play a picking style and loved it, and spent his following years perfecting his version.

When he auditioned for Bill Monroe, his playing style floored the musician and he was immediately hired. It is Scruggs you hear on the Bill Monroe version of Blue Moon of Kentucky that is in the National Recording Registry and the Grammy Hall of Fame. Scruggs and bandmate Lester Flatt independently decided to leave the group later in the ’40s and the pair would the form Flatt and Scruggs, the most popular bluegrass band of all time.

A disagreement between Flatt and Scruggs led to the breakup of the band – Flatt wanted to remain close to traditional bluegrass while Scruggs wanted to broaden their musical horizons. The split was not harmonious and the pair did not speak for a decade, until Flatt was critically ill.

Scruggs went on to form the Earl Scruggs Revue, a band that included two of his sons. Their progressive sound was heard at anti-war concerts – Earl Scruggs was one of the only bluegrass artists to oppose war in Vietnam. He was also instrumental in attracting classic country and bluegrass artist to play on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s classic Will the Circle Be Unbroken.

Scruggs retired from live performances in 1980 but continued to record. He returned after a 17 year gap to release Earl Scruggs and Friends in 2001, a collection that had a long list of superstar collaborators, including Elton John, Sting, Don Henley, and Johnny Cash.

Iris DeMent was born in Arkansas, the baby of 14 children. Growing up in Los Angeles, DeMent sang in a Pentecostal church choir, and as a teenager was exposed to country, folk and R&B which all influenced her songwriting.

Moving to Kansas City for college, DeMent began songwriting as a 25-year-old. She wrote “Our Town” while driving thru a boarded up Midwestern town and says she made no changes to it from that initial writing – and realized she had found her calling.

Despite no support from country radio, DeMent’s first album Infamous Angel sold well through word of mouth and landed her a major label record deal.

In addition to her solo albums, Iris DeMent has had some very successful collaborations. She joined John Prine for 4 songs on his In Spite of Ourselves album, including the title track, which was the most widely played song from the album.

The songs for the album were written at a time when Prine, suffering from throat cancer, was not sure if he could sing again. The title song was inspired by a request from Billy Bob Thornton for use in a soundtrack, and DeMent had this to say about her involvement:

“I was laughing because the song was so funny, such a quirky John Prine song; I was crying because John was singing…. I just looked at John and said, ‘You’re back! Your voice is back!’ and he smiled his biggest ever John Prine smile. It was one of the happiest days of my life. We soon jumped right back into the studio to finish what we had started nearly a year earlier. We had learned a big lesson in patience.”