Now, Steve worries about Justin, the son he had with his third wife, Carol. The nights used to be pitch-dark out here, he says, but now there's a truck stop off the highway. As he lines up the unit, he talks about the trumpet player Chet Baker, one of his heroes. Once a beautiful young man, Baker succumbed to heroin addiction, got his teeth knocked out, became nearly unrecognizable, and didn't pick up his horn for years. Earle is crazy about Let's Get Lost , the 1989 Bruce Weber documentary about Baker's life.
Earle looks down at the positioning device.
The signal has been sent to space and has returned. The New Album Earle's latest album, The Mountain , is a bluegrass record not that Earle is know as a bluegrass musician, but any real hillbilly singer must acknowledge his antecedents. So Earle wrote a bunch of bluegrass songs and recorded them with the Del McCoury Band which is like signing Jesus to play shortstop on your baseball team. Warner Bros., Earle's erstwhile record company, didn't want to release The Mountain . Satisfied document much of the earlier material.