Project 1001: Guitar Town by Steve Earle

Hey pretty baby, are you ready for me / It's your good rockin' daddy down from Tennessee / I'm just out of Austin bound for San Antone / With the radio blastin' and the bird dog on

Dec 23, 2024

I think the first time I heard any Steve Earle was on Letterman. A fantastic performance. I think my focus on metal at the time kept me from fully appreciating this guy’s genius. Maybe I thought he was a bit too country for my tastes back then. I didn’t embrace country music until later in life. In any event, this debut album is a fantastic piece of work that topped the country charts and garnered grammy nominations. I detect some anger at the world tempered by a love for life and tinged with humor at times and a healthy dose of Americana. The cover reminds me a little bit of John Cougar Mellencamp’s Scarecrow. But while Guitar Town covers some of the same working-man ground JCM explores, Earle’s record has a welcome edge to it absent from Scarecrow. This album presaged the coming explosion of alt country and roots rock. Guitar Town is an excellent listen. My rating:

Mark Deming writing for AllMusic identified and expounded on Earle’s uniqueness:

“On Steve Earle's first major American tour following the release of his debut album, Guitar Town, Earle found himself sharing a bill with Dwight Yoakam one night and the Replacements another, and one listen to the album explains why -- while the music was country through and through, Earle showed off enough swagger and attitude to intimidate anyone short of Keith Richards…Guitar Town was his first shot at showing a major audience what he could do, and he hit a bull's-eye -- it's perhaps the strongest and most confident debut album any country act released in the 1980s.”1

American Songwriter discussed Earle’s influence:

“Guitar Town was responsible for launching the career of a writer who, if he hasn’t had a lot of commercial success, has been responsible for influencing a generation of writers and artists by showing them that they can achieve their dreams on their own terms and at least make a living at it. And in addition to being responsible for some great songs, Steve Earle is also responsible for another great writer, his son Justin Townes Earle.”2

The Austin Chronicle examined the 30th Anniversary edition of Guitar Town:

“Before Guitar Town in 1986, few outside of the fertile songwriters' circle led by Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark had heard of Steve Earle. Sixteen albums later, the Schertz-reared troubadour's debut remains packed with songs illuminating the path to a lengthy and rewarding career. It's the kind of country tough enough to attract bikers, angry enough to rile punks, and literate enough with swaggering wordplay to distance itself from anything coming out of Nashville at the time while still remaining true to tradition. Guitar Town rises out of the working man's life epitomized by the songs of Bruce Springsteen. Earle adds a tangy Southern accent and Texas rockabilly sensibility that rides the back roads out of town on "Hillbilly Highway" with a stopover at the gas station attendant searching for something more in "Someday." Remastered, this Anniversary edition doubles up a second disc, a 19-song 1986 concert that reflects the album's attitude but also includes songs from the then-unrecorded but equally outstanding follow-up Exit 0 and Earle's now famous rendition of Springsteen's "State Trooper."“3

In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Karen Conrad wrote:

Steve Earle’s Guitar Town burst into the charts in 1986, securing Earle’s reputation as an outlaw troubadour. A country boy right down to his Texan boots, Earle was 30 years old and already had a string of broken marriages, addiction problems, and legal woes,. He was already a successful songwriter in Nashville, but the pundits greeted Guitar Town with little enthusiasm.
It was then picked up by the rock press, who hailed Earle as one of the first roots rockers - a cousin to both Dwight Yoakam and Bruce Springsteen. The stories told in his songs straddled two genres and appealed to lovers of both rock and country. He helped forge the road into alt.country that is now so well traveled by artists such as Lucinda Williams and Wilco.4

Enjoy and listen without prejudice. Cheers!

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For details about this project, read this: Project 1001 Albums

Charts

• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: #89 5
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: n/a
• RIAA certification: Gold | March 29, 1999 6

Released on March 5, 1986. Here’s what else was happening:

Pop Culture

• Number one song: “Kyrie” by Mister Mister7
• Number one album: Welcome to the Real World by Mister Mister8
• Number one movie: Prety in Pink by Howard Deutsch9
• Most watched TV programs: The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Murder, She Wrote, 60 Minutes, Cheers10
• NYT bestseller, fiction: Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor11
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: Bus 9 to Paradise by Leo Buscaglia12

Some other albums released that month

Sport

• Mar 2 The first million dollar purse for a handicap race is won by British bred 5-year old Greinton with Laffit Pincay Jr. aboard taking out the $1,359,500 Santa Anita Handicap.
• Mar 7 Wayne Gretzky breaks own NHL season record with 136th assist.
• Mar 8 Martina Navratilova is 1st tennis player to earn $10 million.14

Notable Births

• Mar 3 Stacie Orrico, American pop singer-songwriter ("Stuck"), born in Seattle, Washington.
• Mar 4 Margo Harshman, American actress (NCIS), born in San Diego, California.
• Mar 9 Brittany Snow, American actress (Guiding Light), born in Tampa, Florida.15

Historical Events

• Mar 03 Australia Achieves Full Independence from United Kingdom: The Australia Act 1986 officially commenced, marking a pivotal moment in Australian history by legally terminating the United Kingdom's legislative power over Australia. This act symbolized Australia's complete political and legal independence, severing the last constitutional ties with the British Parliament and monarchy.
• Mar 04 Soviet Space Mission Captures First Images of Halley's Comet: The Soviet Vega 1 spacecraft successfully began returning groundbreaking images of Halley's Comet, including the first-ever detailed photographs of its nucleus. This mission represented a significant milestone in space exploration and astronomical imaging, providing unprecedented scientific insights into the structure and composition of a comet.
• Mar 07 Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster - Crew Cabin Recovery: Divers from the USS Preserver locate the crew cabin of the Space Shuttle Challenger on the ocean floor, a somber moment in the investigation of the tragic explosion that occurred 33 days earlier on January 28, 1986.16

Notable Deaths

• Mar 4 Howard Greenfield, American song lyricist ("Calendar Girl"; "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do"; "Love Will Keep Us Together"; theme to "Bewitched"), dies of a brain tumor at 50.
• Mar 6 Georgia O'Keeffe(1887-1986), American sculptor and painter (Cow's Skull, Flowers), dies at 98.
• Mar 10 Ray Milland(1905-1986), Welsh actor (The Lost Weekend-Academy Award 1945), dies at 81.17