Veteran roots musician Steve Earle is set to release his new album The Low Highway on April 16 via New West Records.
The 12-track set is the follow up to 2011's Grammy Award-nominated album I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive.
It features
his live band: Chris Masterson, Eleanor Whitmore, Kelley
Looney, Will Rigby and Allison Moorer and was co-produced by Earle and
Ray Kennedy (whose production partnership, known as the "Twangtrust," was
behind Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road).
The Low Highway is Earle's 15th studio album since the release of his acclaimed 1986 debut Guitar Town.
It will be available as a single compact disc, deluxe CD/DVD set,
digitally, as well as 180 gram vinyl.
Earle states in the album liner notes, "I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now and I never get tired of the view. I've seen a pretty good chunk of the world and my well-worn passport is one of my most prized possessions, but for me, there's still nothing like the first night of a North American tour; everybody, band and crew, crowded up in the front lounge, eating Nashville hot chicken and Betty Herbert's homemade pimento cheese, swapping the same tired old war stories half shouted over the rattle and hum of the highway. And I'm always the last one to holler good night to Charlie Quick, the driver, and climb in my bunk because to me it feels like Christmas Eve long ago when I still believed in Santa Claus. God I love this."
The Low Highway features
"Love's Gonna Blow My Way" and "After Mardi Gras," two songs Earle
co-wrote with Lucia Micarelli, his co-star in HBO
series Treme. Earle played recurring character Harley, a street musician who
mentored Micarelli's character Annie during the first two seasons.
The
songs were written specifically for the series and an additional song
written by Earle for Treme,
"That All You Got?" was performed by Micarelli's character with the Red
Stick Ramblers during the third season premiere. All three songs are
included on the new album and appear in recorded form for the first time
here. Earle's previous composition written for the series, "This
City," garnered both Grammy and Emmy Award nominations in 2010.
On Feb. 19, Earle will release via his own E-Squared Records label, a limited
edition 7 inch of the album tracks "Burnin' It Down" and "That All You
Got?" in support of Independent Music Stores. The record is available
on red vinyl and is a limited edition pressing of 1,000. Each cover
has been hand-signed by Steve Earle and is hand-numbered.
In addition to the release of The Low Highway,
Steve Earle also signed a two-book deal with Twelve, an imprint of
Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group last year.
The first will
be a memoir and the second a novel. Earle's memoir will be a literary work in three acts. The first
section will focus on meeting Townes Van Zandt and the complicated
friendship and music mentorship that ensued, taking place in Texas and
Tennessee. The second section will center on bottoming out in
Nashville, culminating in a prison sentence, during which Steve got
clean.
The heart of the third and final section will be recovery,
starting around the recording of the album Train A Comin'. The novel is a work of historical fiction and will tell the story of a
runaway slave who survived the battle of the Alamo. Earle previously
released a collection of short stories, Doghouse Roses (2002, HarperCollins) and his critically acclaimed debut novel, I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (2011,
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
Of the novel, Patti Smith stated "Steve
Earle brings to his prose the same authenticity, poetic spirit and
cinematic energy he projects in his music. I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive is like a dream you can't shake, offering beauty and remorse, redemption in spades."
The Low Highway
Calico County
Burnin' It Down
That All You Got?
Love's Gonna Blow My Way
After Mardi Gras
Pocket Full Of Rain
Invisible
Warren Hellman's Banjo
Down The Road Pt. II
21st Century Blues
Remember Me
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