Five days? Baby steps....
My introduction to this week's song was good ol' Camelot Music #39, where I spend thirteen years of my retail career making the powers that be a lot of money (yes, I was that good). Pretty sure it was my associate I.J. (though it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be Frank) who took a liking to this week's album, and through continuous hearings this week's tune became etched in my mind. Certainly not my usual fare, but as I've showed a time or two here on Friday Night Jukebox there have been plenty of surprises since I fell in love with pop music when I was fourteen....
Steve Earle has had quite the career path. Born in 1955 in Virginia, his family moved to Texas when he was young, and he grew up primarily in the San Antonio area. He began learning guitar at age eleven, and by sixteen had dropped out of high school to move to Houston with a cousin to try his wares as a musician. At nineteen he moved to Nashville and had some success through the late seventies and early eighties as a songwriter. He released his first EP in 1982, his first studio album in 1985 (which gave him a top ten hit single), and has been recording and touring ever since. Earle had some major drug troubles in the early nineties (which cost him his recording contract) and ended up in jail for a spell (sixty days). He cleaned up, and in the intervening years has done some acting, wrote a novel, a collection of short stories, a play, and has done plenty of advocating for liberal causes. For his career, Earle has released twenty-one studio albums, (eight top ten records on the country album charts, a high of #19 on the Billboard 200), six live albums, eight compilations, and thirty-two singles (two top ten songs on the country singles chart, nary a one on the Billboard Hot 100). He has won three Grammy Awards and been nominated for four more. Earle spends the bulk of his time now taking care of his autistic youngest son but still tours in the summer.
"Copperhead Road" was the first single from Earle's third album, his rather snakily entitled 1988 release, (once more with feeling) Copperhead Road. The single did not chart, but the album reached #7 on the country charts and #56 on the Billboard 200.
Fun Fact: Earle considers the music on this week's album to be the first blend of heavy metal and bluegrass; Rolling Stone has called it "Power Twang."
Earle open "Copperhead Road" with a little bit of mandolin (killer), before a booming bass drum echoes and the story begins. He weaves the tail of the protagonist's family of three generations of outlaws (first two sold moonshine, he's selling pot), and the not always happy endings they meet. Earle's vocals capture the urgency and the anger of a family of criminals, making no apologies. The musicianship is stunning, especially the instrumental break which is a cacophony mimicking the danger and the thrill of evading the law. As I noted above, this isn't my usual fare, but it's a truly great song on the righteousness of their cause, and what rural America will do to support itself. A political tour de force.
Lyric Sheet: "I volunteered for the army on my birthday/They draft the white trash first 'round here, anyway/I done two tours of duty in Vietnam/I came home with a brand-new plan..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
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