Post by Brian on Jun 2, 2020 23:08:54 GMT -8
I preordered "Ghosts of West Virginia," the new album by Steve Earle and the Dukes, and my CD arrived on the release date last Friday, as it always does when I order from Amoeba. (I can never tout Amoeba's online store enough. Free shipping too!) I've only had it a few days, but I'm already convinced that I'm listening to Steve Earle's best album in years.
Seven of the ten songs were written for a play that Steve was performing before the pandemic shutdown about an infamous coal mining disaster in 2010. "It's About Blood" is my favorite so far. David Corn wrote about the song, the play and the artist on the Mother Jones website:
www.motherjones.com/media/2020/04/with-a-new-song-steve-earle-honors-workers-killed-in-a-coal-mine-and-tries-to-reach-trump-voters/
I saw Steve perform some songs from "So You Wannabe an Outlaw" at Amoeba in 2017, and he said that when he recorded the album he thought that Hillary Clinton was going to be elected, implying that he would have a lot to say about Trump on his next record. He also spoke about the passing of his friend Guy Clark -- and his next album was all covers of Guy songs. For his new release, Steve had a different ambition: “I thought that, given the way things are now, it was maybe my responsibility to make a record that spoke to and for people who didn’t vote the way that I did.”
Seven of the ten songs were written for a play that Steve was performing before the pandemic shutdown about an infamous coal mining disaster in 2010. "It's About Blood" is my favorite so far. David Corn wrote about the song, the play and the artist on the Mother Jones website:
www.motherjones.com/media/2020/04/with-a-new-song-steve-earle-honors-workers-killed-in-a-coal-mine-and-tries-to-reach-trump-voters/
I saw Steve perform some songs from "So You Wannabe an Outlaw" at Amoeba in 2017, and he said that when he recorded the album he thought that Hillary Clinton was going to be elected, implying that he would have a lot to say about Trump on his next record. He also spoke about the passing of his friend Guy Clark -- and his next album was all covers of Guy songs. For his new release, Steve had a different ambition: “I thought that, given the way things are now, it was maybe my responsibility to make a record that spoke to and for people who didn’t vote the way that I did.”
