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- [00:00]
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- [00:23]
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- [01:01]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. Coming up on the show today, we'll speak with the Oscar nominee Will Tracy, who wrote the screenplay for the film Begonia. The writers and stars of the new musical Bigfoot will be in studio, Amber Ruffin, Crystal, Lucas Perry and Gray Henson. And we'll speak with the authors of the Diaspora Spice Company Cookbook. That's our plan. So let's get this started with Steve Earle. Musician Steve Earle is playing tonight at the Gramercy Theater. But not just any show. Steve will be playing solo and acoustic. It's a chance to hear up close how his songwriting has touched hearts for years. A talent that recently earned him an induction as a member of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Steve also won a Grammy this year for his work on the album A Tribute to the King of Zydeco, which was made to celebrate the music of Zydeco artist Clifton Chernier. Steve Earle will be at the Gramercy Theatre tonight and again on March 13th. He's on tour with his 51 years of songs and Stories Tour. Hey, Steve.
- [02:27]
Steve Earle
How are you?
- [02:28]
Alison Stewart
I'm doing well. Before we get to the music, were you in town for the blizzard?
- [02:32]
Steve Earle
No, I missed it. It was weird and it was, I, I, my son had his winter break and he normally would go to his mom's in Tennessee, but that didn't work out this year. So I want, I, I fish with a fly rod. So I took John Henry and our child care guys, Stephen, and we went to the Bahamas, went to Abaco and the guys hung out at the pool all day and I fished all day for a week and that was great. And then I had to do the Opry last, you know, last Saturday night and we flew to Nashville on Friday. I played the Opry on Saturday and just as I got off stage, my flight, our flight was canceled the next day and we were stuck in Nashville for three days. So I do have a house there still. I mean I've been here. God, this is. It'll be 20 years, no, 21 years in May. I've been here a little over 20 years now, but I still have a house in Nashville because I do work there sometimes and I've kind of kept it for just, just. I'll keep a lot, a lot of stuff there.
- [03:30]
Alison Stewart
It's your storage unit.
- [03:32]
Steve Earle
Yeah, yeah, you got, you need one when you live in New York. It's this of the deal you do.
- [03:36]
Alison Stewart
You're playing the Gramercy Theater tonight and you're there on March 13th as well.
- [03:40]
Steve Earle
Right.
- [03:41]
Alison Stewart
Why did you want to play these so these shows acoustic?
- [03:44]
Steve Earle
Well, I, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of all I do at the moment. I mean I do. Well, it's not strictly true. I don't keep a band anymore. I did until about, I don't know, three years ago. I guess it was maybe it's four. My band all quit by email the day after. Hardly strictly bluegrass. And I've been keeping it going. I was reduced to touring only in the summer some years back simply because of. I have a 15 year old with autism. His mom moved back to Tennessee. She's not a New Yorker and she wanted to go back there. And so we were tad to come up with something for him to stay in the school he's been in since he's three. And there's nothing that compares to it. Kids in New York City are lucky. There are some choices. And John Henry goes to a school called the Caswell School, which is, as far as I know, you know, the best care for kids like him with autism. He's, he's non verbal. It's, you know, it's pretty profound autism as they say. But you know, he's smart, he figures things out. Unfortunately to the point of, you know, it's. He can navigate an iPad and find stuff that he shouldn't on the Internet just like any other 15 year old. So we have to watch that stuff and, and he's a trip. He's, he's, it's me and him. So basically I came off the road nine months of the year. So I tour for three months in the summer. Doing that with a band, it was hard to make money anyway. But the decision got made for me and I just decided. I started out in coffee houses. I'm pretty good solo. And so now I, I play most of the tour in the summer is solo. And this will be the fourth year, I think that it's strictly solo, except for there's a man called Reckless Kelly in Texas who kind of grew up on my stuff, and we do a handful of shows with them backing me up. And they love it and play it on a pop. They're not, you know, they, to me, they literally grew up on my music and they're really good at playing. And there's a few bluegrass outfits that I play with. I decided after Warren Hellman passed, I really wanted to put a bluegrass band on stage there every year, which I did for some years. A band called the Bluegrass Dukes I had for a while. But it's just. And I love, I love the bluegrass thing. So I do a couple of bluegrass gigs a year, and then I do May. It amounts to this summer, I think there's six shows with Dracula's Kelly and the rest of them are solo shows like this.
- [06:01]
Alison Stewart
How do you set your list? How does your set list come about for a solo show? What songs do you know you have to do? What songs are a little bit challenging to do alone?
- [06:11]
Steve Earle
I don't even think of it that way. I, I. If you can't take a song and, and sit down and, and play it with one guitar, you probably shouldn't be playing it. Yeah, that's. I just grew up that way, so I don't. I'm. But this for years. When I did a solo tour, I always did solo tours. I've always done it just to keep my hand in that. I just thought it was important and it was a way. Sometimes it was when I was writing a record, I could try new material out, but it's, it's just. And it's the context with the audience who genuinely plays smaller places. The Gramercy is like, you know, it's. We're seeding it. So it's, you know, it's like a little over 300 seats, which is. This is fun. And will have like. I used. I've done residencies in the winter, different places over the years since I, since I quit touring year round. And it's, it's one of those things that I used to not make a list. I just go out There. And I sort of do know what I was starting with. I mean, I know I've got to play Copperhead, right? I know I've got to play in New York City. I got to play the Galway girl, and they play some Ireland. I play the Galway girl. That's. That's one thing I know. It's going to definitely be there when I'm gone. Is that song, at least on that island. Because every musician in Ireland hates my guts now because I. I kind of wrote the Irish version of Freebird. Everybody has to play it. It's kind of. But it's. I'm very proud of it. It's like I. In Copperhead Road, I play that every night. And there's some other stuff that people that follow me along want to hear every night. There's about six or seven things I know I can't get away without playing. I always play those, and then I change the other things up. One thing, this tour right now is a little different. It kind of developed into the same set every night because it was about 50 years, I realized last year. And, you know, that 19, the oldest song I still played, was written in 1975, which was the first year I had a publishing deal in Nashville. I threw everything I'd written in Texas away. When I got there, I was 19, and by the time I was 20, I had a deal. And there's about three songs from that period that I still played. So that was. We called the last, you know, like 50 years of song. Whatever we called it, we. I can't play every place I play in three months. So we're continuing that in a lot of places this summer. And then. And. And we just. On. On the. The ad mat. We just crossed out the zero and put a one, put a one next to it. So that's what we're doing. Some markets. There's a few markets we're repeating, and I'll do something else. That's nice. And then at the end of the summer, I go to Dublin for a few days and rehearse with the Water Boys. And. Because Mike Scott and I have been friends for a long time, and there's only three bands I've ever wanted to be in, and it's like the Rolling Stones and NRBQ and the Water Boys and nrbq.
- [08:49]
Alison Stewart
I love NRBQ in Providence.
- [08:52]
Steve Earle
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the thing, man. I. Joey Pomponado is one of my best friends. All those guys are friends. I used to sit in with them a lot, and I'M almost got to make a record with them and I'm trying to do a lot of stuff now that I, that I, you know, that get some stuff done that I, that, you know, because there's regrets, you know, because there is an NRBQ by the way and it's absolutely worth seeing it. Some of the people that, you know, Joey isn't is it crazy about it. But you know what? Terry has a right to go out and be an RBQ with kids that can play the stuff and they do a great job with it. So if you get a chance to see the queue, go out and see him again. But I, you know, I just kind of this show I did get the criticism. I realized that there just weren't enough chick songs in the show last year and so I have to like, you know, that's why I write those songs on purpose. And I'm modifying it slightly this year to, to, to remedy that. When it comes right down to it,
- [09:45]
Alison Stewart
my guest is musician Steve Earl. He's a show tonight at the Gramecy Theater and again on March 13th as part of his 51 Years of Songs and Stories tour. Do you tell stories on stage?
- [09:56]
Steve Earle
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm God. I. I talk. Some people think I talk too much and sometimes I talk about stuff people don't want to hear about. But most of the time I've kind of learned how to do it. And as far as the songwriting part of it, one thing you will hear in every show I've done in recent history is a song called City of Immigrants which is my first New York album which was called Washington Square Serenade. And we are getting ready to make a new video City of Immigrants and get it out there. And I'm also written a song called. It's called Avaya Volvera Salaya. I'm going back to Salaya. And it's basically. I grew up in South Texas so the first straight jobs I had were hammer and nails and I worked on crews and I would work on cruise with Mexicans and none of the other white boys would because they work too hard and they work too many hours. Most of the white crews knocked off at 3:30 in the afternoon. But the minimum wage when I started doing this, it was 1971. It was, was a dollar sixty an hour. If you wanted to come up with enough money, you know, to like, you know, get a girl to even talk to you and buy a bag of pot, you needed to work more hours than that. So it was just one things I would go ahead and work the hours because I was desperate and I. It's just sort of people that I knew doing that and connected with and stayed connected with. I watched people come to stay with families that were citizens on one side of the border. It's a different thing than New York, New York. It's everybody from everywhere. But I grew up in a. In a place where immigration was part of our lives and whether it was legal or illegal was sort of irrelevant. And it's. I just kind of watching all this is pretty heartbreaking for me in a way, because it hits really close to home. The song. I finished it and I sent it to Steve Berlin because he. I had his number and Los Lobos and I are going to record it in the next few weeks and try to get it out. Oh, we're also going to try to get this new video for A City of Immigrants, which we're going to shoot here in the city in the next few weeks. And. And Steve Bushme's probably directing that. I mean, we haven't got the budget back yet, but right now that's who we're talking to about directing it.
- [12:05]
Alison Stewart
Why is this so important to you to get this done?
- [12:07]
Steve Earle
Well, you know, I got. I've been. Haven't had a new record in a while, and I'm starting to write some songs. I've been writing a musical for. I came here to do music for theater. I did. I did music for a couple of Off Broadway things. I did a Richard Maxwell play at soho Rep years ago, and then I did that. Theater Takes a Long Time. That was four years work. And then. Then Coal country at. At the Public Theater, which was Jessica Blank and Eric Jensen and all the songs were min. Ended up on stage in both of those. And it's. You know, I was sort of like the. The stage director and. And the stage manager in Our Town with a guitar in that show. And. And it's just I finally been. I've been very polite and trying to. You know, it's not lost on the musical theater community in New York that the record business didn't give a damn about them for a long time until our business model died and we come like rats from a sinking ship. So I like, I've tried to be respectful about. And now I've got a drama des and a lo nomination and I've been here and I think I've been sort of accepted. Meanwhile, in the last five years, Daisy Foot, whose father was Horton Foot, and I are writing a musical of her father based on her father's screenplay for Tender Mercies, which was Robert Duvall's only best acting Oscar. And, and one best screenplay for, for Horton. And we've been working on that and I've written some songs I'm very proud of for it. We're ready to start workshopping that. So that's, that's, that's what's next. But I'm also free to start thinking about a record of my own. And I just, you know, Tom Morello went to Minneapolis and he's one of my best friends and Bruce went and I couldn't go and I was like, it kind of got me going. And so we started on rereleasing City of Immigrants and then I wrote the song and so I've got like I needed another ball in the air. I'm already a single parent. But it's one of those deals that, that I'm feeling pretty, pretty happy about all that just being, you know, not about why I'm doing it, but I'm just.
- [14:09]
Alison Stewart
You wound up about it.
- [14:10]
Steve Earle
Yeah. It put me, you know, kind of into a place I think I needed to be. I'm 71 years old, you know, and writing as you get older does take a little extra effort to keep things going. You have to get up and do it every day or you're done. I've seen people stop writing, especially songs in their 40s. I mean, great songwriters. It's not, you know, a musical theater is one of the only years where people, you know, wrote and until they were older and, and it's funny because I've always loved it. My grandmother was like, she, I, I, she was seamstress in the drama department. A little tiny college in northeast Texas called Lawn Morris that doesn't exist anymore. Tommy Tune came from there.
- [14:48]
Alison Stewart
Tommy Tune, Really?
- [14:49]
Steve Earle
Yeah, absolutely. And well, she was more proud, proud of the fact that Sandy Duncan came from there. But it was because she was on tv. But it was, you know, they did a Shakespeare and a straight play. It was only a two year school but they did a Shakespeare, a straight play and a musical every year. And I, Drama was the only cast I didn't get kicked out of in high school. The two years I was there, it was two ninth grades and I, I didn't finish either one of them. But I just, I got a good show telegram for my grandmother. Every show that we did, you know, so it's always been sort of there. I've always loved theater. It's kind of my favorite. And I love the American book musical musicals became and sondheim you know, was a genius, but he did sort of start this idea where they sort of slowly became musicals rather than, I mean, like operas rather than book musicals. The American book musical is an American art form, like jazz, rock and roll, bluegrass. It's something we invented. And, and I just, and those started to come back around the time I moved to the city. There were a few that happened that just, you know, kind of encouraged me that, that I could do that again. So I've been.
- [15:56]
Alison Stewart
Who have you seen?
- [15:57]
Shopify Advertiser
What have you seen lately that you've
- [15:58]
Steve Earle
thought, I haven't seen anything in the last two years. Just because my schedule with, you know,
- [16:02]
Alison Stewart
go see Bigfoot, they're gonna be on this.
- [16:04]
Steve Earle
Yeah, I saw that. I saw that.
- [16:06]
Alison Stewart
It's really good.
- [16:07]
Steve Earle
Yeah, I, I, I, I, I've missed more than the first 16 or 17 years I was here. I saw two or three things at least, you know, and then I was touring you around, so I got to see stuff, like I said. But this is like, you know, I got nine months, but I'm, I'm a full time, you know, like, single dad. And it's just harder. I, I feel a little weird about going out. I got one 12 step meeting I gotta make once a week, and then other than that, I don't go out very much and I, I need to get out and see more theater, actually, to tell you the truth.
- [16:37]
Alison Stewart
Well, there's more coming. That's a good thing.
- [16:39]
Steve Earle
Absolutely. No doubt about it.
- [16:41]
Alison Stewart
My guest is Steve Earle. He's playing tonight at the Gramercy Theater. And again on March 13th last year, you became a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
- [16:49]
Steve Earle
Yeah, I campaigned really hard for that. It's, you know, it's what. When I first started making records, I was just trying to make credible country records. And I made a record for a label that there were two people that really believed in me that signed me, like Emory Gordy and Tony Brown, who worked who. Jimmy Bowen, who ran mca. Nashville had hired them and told them, you can go sign whoever you want to. And he go, they said, cool, we're going to sign Steve Earl. And he said, anybody but Steve Earl. And it started this sort of tenuous relationship with my record label and we made Guitar Town my first album, and, and we got on the radio with Guitar Town was a top 10 single. And I've been in Nashville for 13 years and with the only marginal success and people thought I was talented, but it just didn't quite, you know, I missed the Outlaw Window or something, so I didn't get a record deal and then I finally get one when I'm. I'm 30 and nowadays, boy, that's over the hill in country music now. And, and it wasn't quite then. It was a little, little different then. And I just. The first album did really well and it became. It was a number one country album. And then the second album, it became clear my own record label just didn't want it to succeed. And it was because basically the head of it had said my first one wasn't going to. And then when it did and it made him look bad. So. So, you know, people will say, you know, that I'm paranoid, but there's other people that, that were witnesses to this. And just because you ain't paranoid don't mean they ain't out to get you. And I was, I just finally I made a rock record or my version of a rock record out of desperation, which was Copperhead Road. I went to Memphis to make it. And that wasn't, you know, that was a matter of survival for me. And then I go through, I make another record and, you know, my drug habit took me completely out of everything and within after four albums. And then when I get back to the world in the mid-90s, I made what were essentially rock records, but I still talk like this and I'll still sing the way I do. And country kept seeping back into it. And then I made a bluegrass record. And the next thing, the last band I had was an unapologetic country rock band with a steel guitar player and a fiddle player. And I loved it. I loved having that big event. It was very hard to support, but, you know, it's just one of those things. I just, I always wanted to be a member of the Grand Ole Oprya was the only thing that would have impressed my uncle, who was the best nine fingered piano player in northeast Texas. And, and he was where most of the country music I listened to when I was growing up came from. And, and it's a big deal. And, and the Opry has tried really hard to make itself, you know, like, like vital again. Because by making sure I was surprised that I thought somebody else would get inducted before I did. There were a couple of younger people that were up, but they inducted me first in Jelly Roll after that. So that was the. Actually me and Kathy Mateo, both who were signed our. Our first record deals the same day, old friends. And they inducted both of us. And then Jelly Roll, I thought he was going to be in before either one of us. If I Ever made it at all, you know.
- [19:52]
Alison Stewart
Next Week is the 40th anniversary of guitar Town.
- [19:56]
Steve Earle
I know.
- [19:57]
Alison Stewart
I was in college. Yeah, I remember it came across. Everybody loved it.
- [20:02]
Steve Earle
Yeah.
- [20:02]
Alison Stewart
Didn't know why I loved it, but I loved it.
- [20:04]
Steve Earle
Yeah. It's weird because I did get this amount of pop culture. Well, I had had a rockabilly band in 82 and 83 that got some college airplane. I think that's where it started. And the labels had started having college radio reps, you know, students that. That. That worked on in the college radio stations and labels would go in and find one and make them. I think it was an internship of some sort. I ended up marrying one of them when she later on became an NR person, which is kind of an unnatural act. But it didn't work out. But it was. It was. We did some cool stuff. That's when I made Copperhead Red. I was married to Teresa Incident. And she had a lot to do with that record being as good as it was. But I just, you know, I can remember coming to CMJ when. When Guitar Town was out and here in New York, it would be me, whoever the singer and New Model army was. Jason Ringenberg, one of my best friends, because the Scorchers were. Had got their major label deal by then. And we kind of put our first records out literally at the. At the same time. And who else was on? Oh, Steve Albini and the Beasties. His first record had just come out and the BCS were there for just a little while. At one point, you know, Adrox says, hey, take my picture with him. He talks like Elvis. And then they got on their end of the table and they stole the three microphones at that end of the table and split about halfway through this thing, which was mostly these Albini and this other guy, like, haranguing these college radio programmers because they were continuing to play REM after REM broke nationally. And I finally just got tired of it and I just said, hey, college radio broke rem they have every right to keep playing REM and should play rem And I left. And that was kind of, you know, the end of me at cmj. But. But there was always some interest at some college radio stations in some parts of the country.
- [21:53]
Alison Stewart
Do you mind if we play a little bit of Guitar Town?
- [21:55]
Steve Earle
No, not at all.
- [21:56]
Alison Stewart
Let's play it.
- [21:56]
Steve Earle
It's embarrassing how much I like to listen to my own records.
- [22:01]
Copperhead Road Song Narrator
Hey, pretty baby Are you ready for me yet?
- [22:03]
Alison Stewart
You good?
- [22:04]
Copperhead Road Song Narrator
Rock and daddy down from Tennessee I'm just Out off from bound for San Antonio With a radio blasting in the bird dog on Best Beat Travel behind Salma town no local yoga gonna shut me down. Cause me and my boys got this rig unwound and we'll come a thousand miles from a guitar town.
- [22:37]
Marie Callender's Advertiser
Still sounds good.
- [22:38]
Steve Earle
Yeah, it's.
- [22:39]
Alison Stewart
It's still sounds good.
- [22:40]
Steve Earle
It was a digital record, which, you know, going back now, we. It doesn't sound as good as we thought it did then. You know, analog had some depth to it that. That doesn't have, but it punched really hard. So we were. We all. We all drank the Kool Aid and then. And then. Then by the time I got out of jail, Starmaker Records again, we threw it up. So I became painfully analog for years, and now I didn't. My first record in Pro Tools was Washington Square Serenade, because it finally started sounding good enough. And I didn't. I was. I had. I was co owner of a studio in Nashville, and we kept. With some great, you know, antique analog gear that we somehow kept going because of Ray Kennedy, my partner. I still work with Ray. He mixes nearly every record that I put out. And he's. He's done all of the recent. Listen to Williams Records, you know, which he kind of. First time he recorded Lucinda was a duet with me, and he and I produced Car Wheels on the Gravel Road that was made in our studio too. She's. I've known Loose since we were teenagers, you know, the two of us. So we go back farther than anybody else I know that's still alive.
- [23:39]
Alison Stewart
You said Copperhead wrote a couple different ways. And I saw this in the prep, and I was like, oh, I know that much of Steve Morel. I can. I don't have to. But then it said, it's a state song in Tennessee. And I said, I don't want to read this. I want him to explain this to me.
- [23:54]
Steve Earle
Well, Tennessee, most states have one state song because it's music. You know, city in Nashville in the middle of the state, and it's the capital. Tennessee hasn't been able to get away with that. I don't know, there's seven or eight. Tennessee Waltz is one of them. Rocky tops one because. And it became that because it became such a big deal with UT football. It's always played. It's. It's a fight song at Tennessee. You know, Knoxville, Tennessee, is the only place for jail. Inmates in Tennessee don't wear orange suits because they're afraid that if there was a mass escape on a Saturday, that never weed them out. From the football fans. They were black. That's a fact. But it's. There's. It's the same color. Orange. It's one of those things. But I just. Who else? There's several of them. And it was a guy that was my. My state representative for years, and a couple of other people got together and. And presented it, and somehow it got through. It's. It is a state song. I went to the Capitol and accepted it. And then I reminded them as I was walking off, because it was right after the school shootings. And I said this. And by the way, there's another song on the Copperhead Road album that you should check out. It's called the Devil's Right Hand and. Which is about guns and. And how they can. How that can go south on you. And it's. It's one. It's one of those deals that I'm. I learned my craft in Tennessee. I'm connected to. I'll always be a Texan, even though I left there when I was 19, and I've never lived there again. Well, I lived there for about six months. A trailer decompressing. Going back from San Miguel Allende to Nashville in the late 70s, you know, because I was. I was between publishing deals, and I just sort of set it out in Mexico because I still had a draw going for another six months. And 150 bucks a week went a lot further in San Miguel than I did in Nashville. So that's what that was about.
- [25:49]
Alison Stewart
Steve Earle. He'll be playing tonight at the Gramercy Theater and again on March 13th. Thanks for coming to the studio.
- [25:56]
Steve Earle
Good to come. I haven't been down here in a while, I guess. I guess I need to get a new record out, so I get invited more.
- [26:01]
Alison Stewart
Until then, let's listen to Copperhead Road.
- [26:07]
Copperhead Road Song Narrator
Well, my name's Don Lee Pettimore. Same as my daddy and his daddy before. You hardly ever saw Granddaddy down here. They only come a town about twice
- [26:28]
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a year
- [26:32]
Copperhead Road Song Narrator
by £100 a year. Stance of copper Line, Everybody knew that it made money shine. I'm a revenue man Want a granddaddy?
- [26:47]
Marie Callender's Advertiser
Back
- [26:50]
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- [27:00]
Alison Stewart
Repeat.
- [27:00]
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- [27:20]
Steve Earle
Quick Choose a meal deal with McValue, the five dollar McChicken meal deal, the six dollar McDouble meal deal, or the new seven dollar Daily Double meal deal, each with its own small fries, drink and Four Piece McNuggets. There's actually no rush. I'm just excited for McDonald's for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Not Valder McDivery.