Steve Earle
Train A Comin'

There are many ways to be labeled as rebels in the world of rock music. Sometimes it's enough to swing a guitar and smash it to the ground until it's in a thousand pieces. In other cases, there are those who declare their sympathies for the devil but then send their kids to school in the best colleges in the world. On some other occasions, you have to go a little further, perhaps by calling the host of the most-watched TV show an old *bleeping* bastard... only to end up on it thirty years later as the star of a reality show! In short, you've realized that we're always looking for someone to break the rules for us, only to end up with the usual disappointment of having been duped once again by the sly one of the moment.

None of you would think that this gentleman, now in his fifties, visibly overweight and with bad teeth, often anachronistically insisting on wearing a cowboy hat, could be the rebellious hero we're desperately searching for since we realized music is our passion. And especially after listening to this album from 1995, entirely acoustic (shall we be trendy and say unplugged?), recorded live and without overdubs, accompanied by four musicians that it would be an understatement to call outclassed. How can an album that brushes against country and bluegrass be the work of a "damned" person? Because Steve is undoubtedly a damned one, at fourteen, he terrifies his schoolmates with a sawed-off shotgun, runs away from home and wanders around singing in coffee houses for a few spare coins, gets married at nineteen (the first of six wives!), and then starts busking the streets of Nashville, occasionally finding a job that invariably ends up in brawls.

Despite everything and everyone, Steve is good, and in 1985, he manages to land a record contract which he repays with international success with "Guitar Town", dense with a country rocker style as shown by Springsteen and John Mellencamp, and thus begins his lucky period filled with beautiful albums until 1991, with his magnificent songs of a loser battling against injustices, bullying, war.

But Earle is a true rebel and does not enroll his kids in the best college; he doesn’t like this world, and he doesn’t hold back from letting everyone know, institutions included. The moralistic press sinks him, and he turns to the needle, punches a policeman, and does eleven months and twenty-nine days in jail. When he gets out of prison, he finds his old love once again: music, and a contract with a small indie label to record this splendid "Train a Comin'." And the sweetness of this album is similar to those ointments used to soothe the pain of sores scattered over the body, like that of Cool Hand Luke (speaking of rebels... remember that movie with Paul Newman?) who needs to rest before attempting the next futile escape to assert his individuality. The mastery on guitars, dobro, and mandolin of Norman Blake (session man for Johnny Cash, Dylan, Baez, Kristofferson) and Peter Rowan, along with the voice of Emmylou Harris, work miracles, and our hero returns to his roots, presenting songs written between 1974 and 1995 and never published before.

I could describe each track because they are all of an impressively crystalline beauty, but it's enough to mention the puffing rhythm of the string instruments in "Mystery Train part II"; the tough ballad "Tom Ames' Prayer" supported by the acoustic bass of Ron Huskey and the mandolin of Rowan with Earle unfolding the story he wrote when, in '75, he sneaked into the girls' dormitory at Lon Morris College in Jacksonville; the great work on the steel guitar by Norman Blake that makes "Hometown Blues" unique, written in ‘77 when he returned home, and no one but the policemen remembered him; the beautiful "Nothin' without you" with the sweet voice of Emmylou Harris doubling Steve's nasal tone; the joyful rendition of the Beatles' "I'm Looking Through You" redone with vocals, guitar, dobro, mandolin, and bass without needing any plug to connect to the instruments; even the reggae-hillybilly of "The Rivers of Babylon" performed harmonically as Jamaican soldiers would have done had they been enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War. Right at the end of the album, Steve gifts us the interpretation of "Tecumseh Valley", of his life master Townes Van Zandt, who is a terrible model to imitate, with the steel guitar right behind the voice that once again whispers with determination the tragic story of Carolyne found dead on the stairs of the club where she prostituted herself to get back home.

And in the following years, our rebel won't disappoint us, with other excellent roots rocker albums and a relentless political commitment against the death penalty and against the stubborn ignorance of the American public opinion on the reasons of the Islamic faith, culminating with "John Walker's Blues" dedicated to the young American found fighting in Iraq with Taliban forces.

"Rebels" who go to record unplugged on MTV make me laugh; for me, Steve Earle is enough.