REVIEW: Steve Earle, Transcendental Blues (Artemis)
- Matt Fink
There is a rather well-known quote from Steve Earle in which he claims that the late Townes Van Zandt was the greatest songwriter alive and that he'd stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table and make that proclamation. No doubt, Van Zandt was a tremendous songwriter, but sadly served as an all too real role model for a young Steve Earle, who would follow his lead and spend a good portion of his life fighting chemical vices. Life rarely gives second chances, and in the end Van Zandt paid the price for a life that put a little too much strain on his body, as he died at the age of 52. Earle, however, has made the most of his.
To be sure, few artists had a better decade in the 90's than Earle, who kicked heroin, was released from prison, remarried, *and* recorded four fantastic albums in the span of five years. From the pastoral acoustic folk of Train a Comin' to the rambling stoic song cycles of the junkie coming through his struggles a stronger man on I Feel Alright and the spectacularly eclectic El Corazon, Earle has been busy making up for lost time. Heck, he even recorded a bluegrass album with 1999's The Mountain. No matter how close Earle was to the edge, he managed to turn his experiences into a voice of real-life perspective, and we should be happy that he was inspired to use the musical medium to heal his largely self-inflicted wounds.
To this day, Earle seems to be a haunted man. No doubt, very few artists have stared into the void as intently as Earle, who found the allure so strong that he took up residence there for awhile, eventually finding himself a frail 95 pound ghetto junkie who didn't even own a guitar. Earle knows how far he has come, and he's not looking to squander any opportunities. After all, this is a man who pleaded with Woody Guthrie to "come back to us now," but ended up being too impatient and took to personally playing at political rallies whose causes he was interested in, just as the folk legend had done himself. All that being said, the stakes have been raised for Transcendental Blues, the more legitimate follow-up to the watershed release of El Corazon.
Coming off almost as a summary of the four aforementioned recordings, Transcendental Blues sounds somewhat like a collection of unreleased gems from those sessions, as the new effort revisits much of the same territory musically and thematically. Blowing through 15 songs in less than 50 minutes, Earle opens with two rather lumbering guitar tracks, with both the title cut and "Everyone's In Love With You" being somewhat alt. rock friendly. These mid-tempo rockers almost seem to melt into one another with psychedelic Beatles circa-_Magical Mystery Tour effects, fuzzed out guitars, crashing drums, backmasked vocals and vaguely Eastern elements. Recalling the Fab Four again, especially McCartney's "Fool on the Hill," "The Boy Who Never Cried" is quite literally unlike anything Earle has done in the past. Being a strange mini-epic with dramatically sweeping orchestration and tempo changes uncharacteristically grandiose for Earle, the ballad shows an amazing extension of his abilities as a songwriter.
For all the critical acclaim Earle gets for his startling narratives and intense introspection, he really can write a great tune. The bouncy Cajun-influenced "Steve's Last Ramble" is about as infectious as anything he has ever written, with blissfully blown harmonica and tight accordion lines all wrapped around Earle's ruminations on giving up the wild life. Once again showing his resourcefulness, the high energy "The Galway Girl" is yet another surprise, with Earle incorporating Celtic touches with beautifully soaring penny whistles and the accordion of Irish musician Sharon Shannon. Seeing that he has recorded with both the Del McCoury Band and the Supersuckers in recent memory, you have to wonder if a collaboration with the Chieftains could be too far away.
Even as Earle seems to be breaking new ground, the majority of the tracks seem to have musical relatives on his other albums. The driving "I Can Wait" brings to mind "Somewhere Out There" from El Corazon; whereas, the gently finger-picked guitar and shuffling drums of "Lonlier Than This" recalls much of the work on Train a Comin'. The Byrds-ish chiming guitar and ringing organ of "Wherever I Go" finds Earle again trying to outrun his relentlessly pursuing demons, yet somewhat resolved that he'll just have to deal with them. The striking verse of "Halo 'Round the Moon" recalls Van Zandt's "If I Needed You" as much as anything, as Earle often pays homage to the songwriter's legacy. Earle returns to bluegrass on "Until The Day I Die," which must be at least in part semi-autobiographical, as a country boy is bewitched by the city and ends up longing for the familiar fields of home while behind prison bars. No doubt the most powerful statement on the album, Earle creates a character who laments his wandering ways and wearily looks forward to the release of death in "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)," as he makes a list of who he'd like to receive his earthly possessions. Saying "I hurt everyone I loved" and "I'm goin' over yonder where no ghost can follow me" is about as moving as anything to spring from Earle's pen and probably sums up a good deal of what he has been through.
All in all, Transcendental Blues seems to lack the urgency and cohesiveness of El Corazon or I Feel Alright. Still, adding all the elements reveals an album that is a nearly note perfect country rock album, being equal parts Gram Parsons and the Beatles. So, even if it isn't Earle's most dizzyingly fantastic album, it might be the best album you hear all year. If, as Earle would have us believe, Townes Van Zandt's death left a void at the head of the singer-songwriter movement, he's obviously doing everything he can to make sure he can put a claim on that distinction.
