Steve Earle & the Dukes 30th Anniversary of Guitar Town Performed in its Entirety

Throughout his more than 3—year career, Earle has mined the rich veins of American roots music from country to rock and roll, folk and rockabilly. On his 16 th studio album of his singular career, Terraplane, Earle pays tribute to the blues, influenced by the blues giants he saw growing up in Texas – Lightnin’ Hopkins, Freddy King, Johnny Winter, Jimmie and Steve Ray Vaughan, Canned Heat and Billy Gibbons. Recorded in Nashville by Ray Kennedy and produced by R.S. Field, the new collection is his homage to the music that he calls “the commonest of human experience, perhaps the only thing that we all truly share” and a record he has wanted to make for a long time. Over 11 original tracks, Earle and his band The Dukes traverse various forms of the blues – from the Texas roadhouse blues of opener “Baby Baby Baby (Baby)” to the acoustic country blues of “Aint Nobody’s Daddy Now” and the Chicago blues of “The Usual Time” to the pre-war blues of “Baby’s Just As Mean As Me,” a duet with Eleanor Whitmore. The electrified “King of the Blues” features some scorning guitar playing from guitarist Chris Masterson and on “The Tennessee Kid” Earle sounds like a possessed street preached as he retells the Faustian crossroads legend over a John Lee Hooker-esque boogie