Steve Earle & The Dukes latest album is the best blues album Tony Nielsen has heard in a long time.
He namechecks Robert Johnson and names his new album after one of Johnson's better known songs, so you get the sense from the get-go that Steve Earle is steeped in the blues.
A few seconds into the first track, Baby, baby, Baby, and there's no mistaking that this is a
seriously good blues record. The good news is that it's not loaded with songs that sound like they're straight out of Muddy Waters, Elmore James or Howlin' Wolf, in the derivative way -- instead they sound personal and each song comes from a different direction, within a bluesy framework.
Put simply, Steve Earle is a musical magpie, and it's fun picking up his influences. A hint here of Sonny Boy (Rice Miller) in his harp playing, jaunty reflections of Reverend Gary Davis and Tommy McLennan, and a whole song devoted to Robert Johnson at the crossroads, trading with the Devil. Mind you, Mr Earle has material aplenty to draw on from his own life. I'm Better off Alone, draws on the demise recently of marriage number six.
Terraplane is the best blues record I have heard in yonks. Don't hold back, you won't be disappointed.
