Earle's latest work embraces peace far more than protest

By Michael Hoinski
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday, April 27, 2008

Joan Baez set Steve Earle free. The year was 1970 and Earle, 15, was living the life of a budding anti-war protester in Schertz, about 90 miles south of Austin, when he was dragged to the drive-in with his family. They arrived late, and all the screens were full except the one showing "Woodstock." Earle's dad wasn't too stoked about his only option, but he'd promised his kids a movie — save for Steve, who didn't want to be there in the first place on account of him and his dad butting heads over just about everything. But when Baez performed "Amazing Grace" a cappella, an epiphany of monumental proportions was reached.

"I think us beginning to come to some sort of terms about the fact that I was opposed to the war and he was a government employee in a military town, you know, began that day," Earle says via cell phone aboard his tour bus a week before his show tonight in Austin at the Paramount Theatre.

Earle, now 53, is one of the most politically charged musicians in the roots-rock game. But his latest album, the Grammy-winning "Washington Square Serenade," is a much different affair. It reflects on Earle's move after about 30 years in Nashville to the same street in New York's Greenwich Village where the cover of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" was shot — that, and the new love of his life, sixth wife Allison Moorer, who is touring with him in support of her new album, "Mockingbird."

Songs on "Washington Square Serenade" such as "Tennessee Blues," a fond farewell to Nashville, and "City of Immigrants," a bear-hug embrace of the Big Apple that's backed by the world-music tones of Brazilian band Forro in the Dark, intermingle with "Sparkle and Shine," an ode to Moorer, and "Steve's Hammer (For Pete)," a paean to folk pioneer Pete Seeger that calls for laying down, not wielding, the hammer. The mix creates an album that is more about peace, love and understanding than it is about protest. Earle is on such a roll that he even tries his hand at hip-hop on "Satellite Radio," wherein his half-rap over an electronic beat and an acoustic riff doesn't just work but sings.

"Serenade" was produced by John King, one half of the Dust Brothers, the duo who helmed the Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique" and Beck's "Odelay." Earle and King auditioned each other over the Internet, one-upping, by way of e-mail, versions of Earle's cover of Tom Waits' "Way Down in the Hole," which Earle had been commissioned to cut for the fifth and final season of the thoroughly engrossing inner-city television drama "The Wire."

"It was so the opposite of the way that I normally work, but that's what this was: intentionally working as far away from my comfort zone as I could get," Earle says of his move away from the studio and its cast of armchair critics to the intimate confines of computers. "And I loved it. I mean, it's not for every situation. There are some things you've got to be able to look the beast in the eye. But I'm not afraid of it anymore."

And why should he be afraid — of anything, really? He's been to hell and back. See, in his 30s, Earle was an up-and-comer with two gold albums under his belt, "Guitar Town" and "Copperhead Road." His affinity for the needle eventually landed him in jail and out of the game for a spell. But like Walon, the recovering heroin addict on HBO's "The Wire" that he played with heart-throttling authenticity, Earle has no regrets.

"A lot of what 12-step programs are about is not letting regret kill you 'cause it takes you back out there and it kills you if you spend too much time on it," he says. "I think I was an addict — that I'm an addict — on a genetic level. I think I would have succumbed to this disease if I had been a carpenter."

Recently, the full-circle dynamic of life played out for Earle on an almost Shakespearean level. Joan Baez, the person who emancipated him (and his dad) nearly 40 years ago, unwittingly gave Earle a chance to pay her back by asking him to produce her forthcoming, as-yet-untitled album. Slated for release this summer, it features two songs Earle wrote for it, plus others by Elvis Costello, Eliza Gilkyson and Patty Griffin.

Too bad Earle's dad, who passed away a couple days after Christmas, won't be able to rejoice in this divine conception, because, as Earle says, "It's really, really, really great."