Steve Earle
Stephen Fain Earle (/ɜːrl/; born January 17, 1955) is an American country, rock and folk singer-songwriter. He began his career as a songwriter in Nashville and released his first EP in 1982.
For the football player, see Steve Earle (footballer). For the drummer Steve Earle, see Afghan Whigs.
Steve Earle
Stephen Fain Earle
January 17, 1955
Ft. Monroe, Virginia, U.S.
San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
- Musician
- singer-songwriter
1968–present[4]
- Uni
- MCA Nashville
- New West
- E2 Records
- Warner Bros.
Earle's breakthrough album was the 1986 debut album Guitar Town; the eponymous lead single peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot Country chart. Since then, he has released 20 more studio albums and received three Grammy awards each for Best Contemporary Folk Album; he has four additional nominations in the same category. "Copperhead Road" was released in 1988 and is his bestselling single; it peaked on its initial release at number 10 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and had a 21st-century resurgence reaching number 15 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, buoyed by vigorous online sales. His songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Levon Helm, The Highwaymen, Travis Tritt, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, Shawn Colvin, Bob Seger, Percy Sledge, Dailey & Vincent, and Emmylou Harris.[5]
Earle has appeared in film and television, most notably as recurring characters in HBO's critically acclaimed shows The Wire and Treme. He has also written a novel, a play, and a book of short stories. Earle is the father of singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle with whom he frequently collaborated.
Early life[edit]
Earle was born on January 17, 1955[6] in Fort Monroe, Virginia, where his father was stationed as an air traffic controller.[7] The family moved to Texas before Earle's second birthday and he grew up primarily in the San Antonio area.[8][9][10][11]
Earle began learning the guitar at the age of 11 and entered a school talent contest at age 13.[8] He ran away from home at age 14 to search for his idol, singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt.[12] Earle was "rebellious" as a young man and dropped out of school at the age of 16. He moved to Houston with his 19-year-old uncle, also a musician. While in Houston Earle finally met Van Zandt.[8][11] Earle was opposed to the Vietnam war as he recalled in 2012: "The anti-war movement was a very personal thing for me. I didn't finish high school, so I wasn't a candidate for a student deferment. I was fucking going."[13] The end of the Selective Service Act and the draft lottery in 1973 prevented him from being drafted, but several of his friends were drafted, which he credits as the origin of his politicization.[13] Earle also noted that when he was a young man, his girlfriend was able to get an abortion despite the fact that abortion was illegal. Her father was a doctor at the local hospital in San Antonio while several other girls he knew at the time were not able to get abortions; they lacked access to those with the necessary power to arrange an abortion, which he credits as the origin of his pro-choice views.[13]
Career[edit]
1974–1999[edit]
In 1974, at the age of 19,[7] Earle moved to Nashville and began working blue-collar jobs during the day and playing music at night.[8] During this period Earle wrote songs and played bass guitar in Guy Clark's band and sang on Clark's 1975 album Old No. 1.[11] Earle appeared in the 1976 film Heartworn Highways, a documentary on the Nashville music scene which included David Allan Coe, Guy Clark, Townes van Zandt, and Rodney Crowell. Earle lived in Nashville for several years and assumed the position of staff songwriter at the publishing company Sunbury Dunbar.[8][11] Later Earle grew tired of Nashville and returned to Texas where he started a band called The Dukes.[11]
Personal life[edit]
Earle has been married seven times, including twice to the same woman.[47] He married Sandra "Sandy" Henderson in Houston at the age of 18, but left her to move to Nashville a year later[11] where he met and married his second wife, Cynthia Dunn. Earle married his third wife, Carol-Ann Hunter, who was the mother of their son, singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle (1982–2020).[11][48]
Next, he married Lou-Anne Gill (with whom he had a second son, Ian Dublin Earle, in January 1987). In December 1987, he had a daughter (Jessica Montana Baker) with a groupie, Theresa Baker.[49] His fifth wife was Teresa Ensenat, an A&R executive for Geffen Records at the time.[12] He then married Lou-Anne Gill a second time, and finally, in 2005, he married singer-songwriter Allison Moorer with whom he had a third son, John Henry Earle, in April 2010.[50] John Henry was diagnosed with autism before age two. In March 2014, Earle announced that he and Moorer had separated.[51] Earle has primary custody of John Henry during the school year and then tours in the summer.[52] In an interview with the Guardian, Earle said about John Henry, "I know why I get up in the morning now: to figure out a way to make sure he’s going to be alright when I’m gone. That’s my job. That’s what I do.”[53]
In 1993, Earle was arrested for possession of heroin and in 1994, for cocaine and weapons possession.[8][54][55] A judge sentenced him to a year in jail after he admitted possession and failed to appear in court.[56] He was released from jail after serving 60 days of his sentence.[55][57] He then completed an outpatient drug treatment program at the Cedarwood Center in Hendersonville, Tennessee.[57] As a recovering heroin addict, Earle has used his experience in his songwriting.[58]
Earle's sister, Stacey Earle, is also a musician and songwriter.
Political views and activism[edit]
Earle is outspoken with his political views, and often addresses them in his lyrics and in interviews. Politically he identifies as a socialist and tends to vote for Democratic candidates, despite not agreeing entirely with their politics.[59][60] During the 2016 election he expressed support for Senator Bernie Sanders, who he considered to have pushed Hillary Clinton to the left on important issues.[61] In a 2017 interview Earle said about President Donald Trump: "We've never had an orangutan in the White House before. There's a lot of 'What does this button do?' going on. It's scary. He really is a fascist. Whether he intended to be or not, he's a real live fascist."[62] However, Earle has called for the American left to engage with the concerns of working class Trump voters, saying in 2017: "…maybe that's one of the things we need to examine from my side because we're responsible. The left has lost touch with American people, and it's time to discuss that".[63] In 2020, he stated: "I thought that, given the way things are now, it was maybe my responsibility to make a record that spoke to and for people who didn't vote the way that I did. One of the dangers that we're in is if people like me keep thinking that everyone who voted for Trump is a racist or an asshole, then we're fucked, because it's simply not true."[63]
In his 1990 song "Justice in Ontario", Earle sang about the Port Hope 8 case. Earle criticized the conviction of six Satan's Choice bikers for a 1978 murder in Port Hope, arguing that the accused were innocent, framed by the ruthless Corporal Terry Hall of the Ontario Provincial Police's Special Squad.[64] In the song Earle compares the conviction of the "Port Hope 6" to the massacre of the Black Donnellys in 1880. In 1990, Earle stated in an interview about "Justice in Ontario": "There's some concern about reprisals because the O.P.P. (Ontario Provincial Police) is obviously not gonna be thrilled. My hope is that I'll be far too out-in-the-open and far too public for the police to do anything and get away with it. But the point is, that's not a reason for doing or not doing anything, because…I very nearly went to prison myself for something I didn't do, simply because a law enforcement agency didn't want to admit that somebody had fucked up—they didn't want to open the whole can of worms and all the other complaints that were constantly brought against the Dallas police department. You can't stand by and let stuff like that go down without saying anything about it. And I think I especially have a responsibility to do that, 'cause if I didn't have any money right now I'd be in prison in Texas—I'm convinced of that. It was that close. But I was able to afford decent legal representation. And it comes down to the fact that people who can't afford decent legal representation—who are subject to something like this happening and turning out very badly—feed my kids. That's where my money comes from and that's where my freedom comes from".[64]
Earle is a vocal opponent of capital punishment,[8] which he considers his primary area of political activism. Several of his songs have provided descriptions of the experiences of death row inmates, including "Billy Austin" and "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)".[15] Conversely, he has also written a song from the perspective of a prison guard working on death row in "Ellis Unit One", a song written for the film Dead Man Walking, the title based on the name of the State of Texas men's death row.[65] He is pro-choice and has argued that rich Americans have always had access to abortions; he says the political issue in the US is really whether poor women should have access. His 2012 novel I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive describes the life of a morphine-addicted doctor in 1963 San Antonio before Roe v. Wade who treats gunshot wounds and provides illegal abortions to poor women.[66] Since his youngest son was diagnosed with autism, Earle has also become an advocate for people on the autism spectrum.