And he's walked through the valley of the shadow of death. But unbeknownst to most of us, he was also a stone junkie. Then he was busted for heroin possession, which turned out to be a great gift. Today, he's standing high on the mountaintop. I have no doubt that I was going to die if I kept doing drugs.
Earle is smart enough, and grounded enough, to know that it's all folk music.
The music business made them up. The original bluegrass guys were alternative country. On Poison Lovers , the turbo-twang guitars chime like church bells on a sunny Sunday morning, evoking George Harrison's bald theft of old Chet Atkins licks on those early Beatles recordings. And on the blustery, rawboned N.Y.C. , the guitars scrape and rumble like a gravel truck spilling its load on a white-hot West Texas highway. The record is beautifully framed by two spiritually grounded songs.