Album Review- Steve Earle- Jerry Jeff

ONE NAUGHTY WORD NEAR THE BEGINNING of the video- Hope the performance makes up for it- otherwise skip to about 45 seconds in Steve Earle is one of my favorite artists. His recent album is the third in a trilogy of tributes to his mentors- Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Jerry Jeff Walker. As a fan, these are generally among my least favorite Earle albums and reviewing almost seems unfair. Because these are homage pieces and jumping on points for new listeners. Are tribute albums ever going to be better than the real thing? No but they serve a purpose and you can’t be too harsh on a artist for putting out heartfelt product, and to be fair I am not all that familiar with the depth of these men’s work. (As an aside, I really do love the JT album and artistically think it is well done. It sounds like a Steve Earle album and is different from the originals in all the right ways. It is the kind of album that one will enjoy and then sit right down and listen to both versions) A couple of things stand out - one is Steve seems to slip into a Jerry Jeff persona. Earle has put himself in the position where he obviously wants to respect the music. Which leads to the second thing, when you listen to JJ it’s clear where Earle got his influence especially when he does some rambling of his own, or sings a particularly pensive song. Oh and I probably should remind that Earle is one of my favorite, if not my favorite artist, so this isn’t criticism. Jerry Jeff is a fine listen. If I am pushed to review, I will say that it’s not quite as good as Guy in what I would expect to return for repeated listening but it sure does it what it advertises, and that was getting me to check out the work of one Jerry Jeff Walker. 2022 - New West