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Sound Advice: Legendary Troubadour Steve Earle to Perform in Cincinnati

Earle has been writing, recording and performing songs for a half-century.

Jul 24, 2024 at 5:03 am

Steve Earle Photo: Courtesy of Steve Earle

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Steve Earle is an enduring force, a troubadour who can’t help but relay his thoughts and feelings through the country, folk and rock music that infected his Texas childhood. Earle has been writing, recording and performing songs for a half-century, a winding career that didn’t take off until his full-length debut, Guitar Town, surfaced in 1986, a dozen years after he moved to Nashville.

Earle’s antics and issues have been well-documented: his lefty politics, his drinking and drugging, his many wives. But it was the death of his son, Justin Townes Earle, at age 38 in 2020 that perhaps had the most lacerating impact on him.

“I’m a different person than I was before I lost my firstborn son,” Earle said in an interview with Echo in early 2023. “Just like I’m a different person than I was before I got sober and a different person than before I moved to New York when I was 50 years old. All those things are kind of landmarks and they do change you. I write — that’s what I do. You know, that’s the only way I can kind of justify the space I take up.”

Earle’s latest effort, the just-released Alone Again (Live), is indeed a live record culled from his 2023 solo acoustic tour. The album features 15 songs from across his catalog, from staples like “Guitar Town,” “Copperhead Road,” “Transcendental Blues” and “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied” to more obscure cuts, all delivered through Earle’s elemental acoustic guitar playing and a weathered voice rife with ache and defiance. There’s also some stage banter that describes his thoughts about why a particular song came out of him at the time of its creation and the fact that he’s still alive and playing music so many years after he could have lost it all. And he’ll do it all again on his current tour — yet another solo acoustic summer outing across the U.S.

Steve Earle plays the Ludlow Garage on July 27 at 7:30 p.m. More info: ludlowgaragecincinnati.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat's July 24 print edition.