Sidetracks

So much for the one about drugs fuelling creativity. Narcotics only gave Steve Earle the block. Once the big man went straight in the mid-90s, he found himself with a lot of free time to fill, and fill it he did, with songs, short stories and last year’s novel Doghouse Roses.

Sidetracks catches the overflow from the last seven years of plenty. The thirteen tracks herein can be split roughly into two camps – the originals penned quick and recorded even quicker for soundtracks, and the covers dashed off as extra incentives on special edition albums, or just for pig iron.

The former category favours heartland rock like ‘Some Dreams’ and ‘Open Your Window’, or else stricken ballads, the most distinguished being ‘Ellis Unit One’, written for Tim Robbins’ Dead Man Walking and sounding like the death dirge Bruce never put on Nebraska.

This is all solid stuff, but the covers are the jewels inside the piñata. Here’s where Earle reveals affinities with The Clash and The Pogues as much as Hank and Woody. Reggae is the easiest form in which to sound like a tourist, but his ‘Johnny Too Bad’ finds a line between southern outlaw balladry and shantytown rebel rock. Further on, he locates the Beatles gene in Nirvana’s ‘Breed’ and marries it to cowpunk swagger.

Then there’s the tunes he was obviously reared on: The Chambers Brothers’ ‘Time Has Come Today’ (replete with Abbie Hoffman sample and Sheryl Crow cameo), Dylan’s ‘My Back Pages’ and a front porch version of Lowell George’s goodbuddy hymn ‘Willin’’.

In a year’s time this’ll be one of the bona fide bargains in the bargain bin.