Live At Montreux 2005 (2006)
| Artist: Steve Earle |
| Format: | CD |
Product Details:
Song Listing
| Steve Earle's solo performance at the 2005 Montreux Festival is a charismatic triumph. Armed with just an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, he performs tracks from across his career, with an emphasis on his later output but also going right back to songs from his breakthrough album "Copperhead Road" from 1988. The songs are performed with his characteristic combination of honesty, outspoken views and self-deprecating humor. |
Album Notes and Credits
Notes & Personnel Info |
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Liner Note Author: Michael Heatley. |
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Recording information: The Montreux Jazz Festival (07/2005). |
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Photographer: Lionel Flusin. |
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One of those rare singer-songwriters who can transfix an audience with only his voice and an acoustic guitar, Steve Earle does exactly that on LIVE AT MONTREUX 2005. Drawing from material that spans two decades, the Virginia-born roots-rock hero offers up spare, stripped-down takes of songs best known in their electric versions, including "Copperhead Road" and "The Revolution Starts Now," along with stark numbers such as the haunting prison narrative "Ellis Unit One," which first appeared on the DEAD MAN WALKING soundtrack. |
Compilation Appearances
Associated Artists and Works
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Steve Earle & the Dukes (& Duch |
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Low Highway [Limited Edition] [Digipak] ~ Steve Earle & the Dukes (& Duch |
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The Low Highway [Digipak] ~ Steve Earle & the Dukes (& Duch |
Technical Info
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Release Date : 07/11/2006 |
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Original Release Date : 2006 |
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Catalog ID : 20029 |
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Label : Eagle Records (USA) |
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Number of Discs : 1 |
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Studio/Live : Live |
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Mono/Stereo : Stereo |
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SPAR Code : n/a |
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UPC : 00826992009223 |
Bio
Steve EarleFor those who don?t know, Steve Earle has been, for the past two decades, one of the more compellingly engaged figures on the American cultural landscape. Steve is the author of best-selling works of fiction (?Doghouse Roses?), a playwright, and a well-known speaker and presence in a variety of left-leaning populist movements. But it is in his persona as an exceedingly thoughtful, yet fun, country rocker that most people know him, and rightly so. His contribution to the merging of progressive country to the wider rock audience remains huge. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the entire genre of ?alt. Country? would not exist without Earle?s ground-breaking extension of what used to be called ?folk-rock.? His recorded work, from the classic 1986 Guitartown onward through such excitingly heartfelt/redemptive works as Copperhead Road, I Feel Alright, El Corazon, Transcendental Blues, to the current The Revolution Starts?Now, represents an extraordinary catalogue of deeply personal music which compares favorably with such esteemed heroes as Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, or even Bob Dylan.
There are some who might wish Steve keep his rabble-rousing music to himself and simply turn out entire albums of tunes like ?Fearless Heart.? Steve is sympathetic to this point of view. But for now he feels little choice. As an American patriot, what was someone with a songwriting gift like his to do in the age of Bush? ?We?re in trouble, it isn?t anything you want to just sit by and pretend isn?t happening,? says the artist about his response to the current American place in the world.
It isn?t anything you really want to argue with either. Because first of all, Steve Earle has been around. He has done his requisite hard traveling for his position as a cultural bard. He is no dilettante in what he loosely calls ?The Revolution?. Indeed, he is a renaissance man of the Revolution, a process which doesn?t necessarily have anything to do with AK-47s in the street or little red books written by Mao. The Revolution is a way to think, a way to live. Being up front in that number takes a little ego, that?s for sure. But it takes learning too --- life learning and book learning. Mostly, though it takes heart. Heart is something Steve Earle, who still ?falls in love a lot?, has plenty of.
