JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE
''SINGLE MOTHERS''
SEPTEMBER 9 2014
29:46
1 - Worried Bout The Weather 3:31
2 - Single Mothers 2:45
3 - My Baby Drives 2:09
4 - Today And A Lonely Night 2:51
5 - Picture In A Drawer 4:05
6 - Wanna Be A Stranger 2:29
7 - White Gardenias 2:34
8 - Time Shows Fools 2:53
9 - It's Cold In This House 3:06
10 - Burning Pictures 2:44
All Tracks Earle
Justin Townes Earle /Guitar (Acoustic), Vocals
Mark Hedman /Bass
Paul Niehaus /Guitar, Pedal Steel
Matt Pence /Drums
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
One of the most winning qualities about Justin Townes Earle's music has been its modesty; his best work is dominated by an easy, unforced groove that's part Memphis and part Nashville, and the music doesn't get in the way of the lyrics but glides side by side with a subtle insistence. While Earle generated a cool Stax-gone-acoustic sound on 2012's Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, 2014's Single Mothers eases back into a spectral, middle-of-the-night sound, with Earle backed by a low-key three-piece band and the pedal steel guitar adding a mournful tone to most of these songs of lonely lives and broken hearts. (The simple approach matches the album's brevity, which comes in a mere 30 minutes.) The spare, often stark surfaces of the arrangements and production on Single Mothers make a set of sad songs sound all the more downbeat, and Earle's reputation for hurtin' songs isn't about to change when folks hear this album; "Picture in a Drawer" and "White Gardenias" are abject tales of romantic rejection, "My Baby Drives" is a witty number with a painful subtext, "Worried Bout the Weather" uses an oncoming storm as a striking metaphor for unrequited love, and the title track about busted marriages and the emotional toll on everyone involved is all the more difficult to hear when one knows how much it mirrors Earle's own life experiences. There are moments where Single Mothers feels like art therapy as much as music, but this album communicates its pain with intelligence and a gentle touch, and as a singer and lyricist Earle grows with each album; there are more than a few moments of brilliance on this set if you don't mind sharing a rough and lonesome road with Earle for a while.
OFFICIAL ABOUT
AboutOnce compared to a man who wears many suits, in thirty-two short years Justin Townes Earle has experienced more than most, both personally and professionally. Between releasing four full-length-critically-acclaimed albums, constant touring, multiple stints in rehab, a new found sobriety, being born Steve Earle’s son, amicable and not-so-amicable break-ups with record labels, and facing the trials and tribulations of everyday life, it’s safe to say JTE has quite the story to tell. His fifth album (and first ever on Vagrant Records) serves as the perfect platform for such narrations.
Entitled Single Mothers, the album is comprised of ten tracks that showcase exactly why Justin Townes Earle is considered a forefather of Contemporary Americana. As a recently married, sober man JTE writes from a point of maturity and content we’ve not seen before on past records. “One day I just realized it’s not cool to die young, and it’s even less cool to die after 30,” Justin states as he reflects on a life past and his newly found clarity. What he’s created is an album that’s raw, honest and personal in a way he hasn’t touched upon since his debut EP, Yuma.
Co-produced along side longtime engineer Adam Bednarik, Single Mothers shines in a world of pop-culture driven Ameri- cana records. “I don’t really know what Americana means anymore,” Justin laughs. “That’s not a slant on Americana, it’s just become a very unclassifiable genre. It’s gone seemingly pop. There are good parts to that, but it’s getting to a point where it won’t be able to redeem itself if it doesn’t slow down. Just like everything that gets popular.” With his heart and soul still rooted in Nashville, Single Mothers shows Justin’s continued combination of catchy songs and authenticity.
The album was recorded live with his four-piece touring band with only days of rehearsal leading up to recording to keep the ideas fresh. No overdubs, no other singers, no additional players – just a real, heartfelt performance capturing the moment. In fact, his songs “Picture in a Drawer’ and ‘It’s Cold in This House’ are only Justin, his guitar and his pedal steel player Paul Niehaus.
Earle’s new perspective is clear on Single Mothers as it opens with the track ‘Worried Bout The Weather,’ where we see the intimate, sensitive side of JTE. Here Justin rehashes feelings of trouble on the horizon singing “it don’t take a twister to wreck a home, don’t take a night to feel like you’re in the dark and all alone” – a theme that has surfaced before in his lyrics, but this time with a personal honesty and openness. Justin’s mood switches gears on the upbeat track ‘My Baby Drives.’ “My baby drives me to church on Sundays, take me to see my Momma on every
other Monday. Some might say I’m the luckiest man alive,” Justin croons light heartedly. On the title track ‘Single Mothers’ we hear feelings of resentment as JTE growls, “absent father, never offer even a dollar, he doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that he’s forfeited his rights to his own. Absent father is long gone.”
“As I’ve gotten older my anger comes from a very different place. It’s more rational and mature. I guess that comes along with clarity,” JTE reflects. Single Mothers finds Justin dealing with past struggles and anger with more ease than ever before. Creating a nostalgic feeling with the return to his signature sound, JTE takes listeners on a journey through some of his most personal stories yet on what can only be described as an authentic country record.
Single Mothers is due out September 9, 2014 on Vagrant Records.
BIOGRAPHY
by Steve Leggett
The son of maverick Texas songwriter Steve Earle (and carrying the middle name of his dad's mentor, Townes Van Zandt), Justin Townes Earle shares just a hint of his father's vocal style in his voice, and like the elder Earle, he writes his own songs, but aside from the fact that both Earles fall to the country side of the Mason-Dixon Line, there are probably far more differences in their musical approaches than there are similarities. The younger Earle grew up in Nashville and took up music early, playing in the bluegrass/ragtime combo the Swindlers and the hard-rocking Distributors; he also toured (playing guitar and keyboards) with his father's road band the Dukes, picking up a few of the elder Earle's old bad habits in the process, but like his father, he eventually kicked his drug habit and put his life in order. Developing his own writing and playing style, a hybrid mixing folk and blues with strong early country leanings, Earle self-released the six-song EP Yuma in 2007. The release attracted the attention of Chicago's Bloodshot Records, who signed Earle and put out a full-length project, The Good Life, produced by R.S. Field and recorded at House of David Studios, in 2008. He followed it with Midnight Movies in 2009 and Harlem River Blues in 2010. Earle toured extensively behind this last album and won nearly universal critical acclaim. He followed it up with Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, in the spring of 2012.
OFFICIAL SITE
''SINGLE MOTHERS''
SEPTEMBER 9 2014
29:46
1 - Worried Bout The Weather 3:31
2 - Single Mothers 2:45
3 - My Baby Drives 2:09
4 - Today And A Lonely Night 2:51
5 - Picture In A Drawer 4:05
6 - Wanna Be A Stranger 2:29
7 - White Gardenias 2:34
8 - Time Shows Fools 2:53
9 - It's Cold In This House 3:06
10 - Burning Pictures 2:44
All Tracks Earle
Justin Townes Earle /Guitar (Acoustic), Vocals
Mark Hedman /Bass
Paul Niehaus /Guitar, Pedal Steel
Matt Pence /Drums
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
One of the most winning qualities about Justin Townes Earle's music has been its modesty; his best work is dominated by an easy, unforced groove that's part Memphis and part Nashville, and the music doesn't get in the way of the lyrics but glides side by side with a subtle insistence. While Earle generated a cool Stax-gone-acoustic sound on 2012's Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, 2014's Single Mothers eases back into a spectral, middle-of-the-night sound, with Earle backed by a low-key three-piece band and the pedal steel guitar adding a mournful tone to most of these songs of lonely lives and broken hearts. (The simple approach matches the album's brevity, which comes in a mere 30 minutes.) The spare, often stark surfaces of the arrangements and production on Single Mothers make a set of sad songs sound all the more downbeat, and Earle's reputation for hurtin' songs isn't about to change when folks hear this album; "Picture in a Drawer" and "White Gardenias" are abject tales of romantic rejection, "My Baby Drives" is a witty number with a painful subtext, "Worried Bout the Weather" uses an oncoming storm as a striking metaphor for unrequited love, and the title track about busted marriages and the emotional toll on everyone involved is all the more difficult to hear when one knows how much it mirrors Earle's own life experiences. There are moments where Single Mothers feels like art therapy as much as music, but this album communicates its pain with intelligence and a gentle touch, and as a singer and lyricist Earle grows with each album; there are more than a few moments of brilliance on this set if you don't mind sharing a rough and lonesome road with Earle for a while.
OFFICIAL ABOUT
AboutOnce compared to a man who wears many suits, in thirty-two short years Justin Townes Earle has experienced more than most, both personally and professionally. Between releasing four full-length-critically-acclaimed albums, constant touring, multiple stints in rehab, a new found sobriety, being born Steve Earle’s son, amicable and not-so-amicable break-ups with record labels, and facing the trials and tribulations of everyday life, it’s safe to say JTE has quite the story to tell. His fifth album (and first ever on Vagrant Records) serves as the perfect platform for such narrations.
Entitled Single Mothers, the album is comprised of ten tracks that showcase exactly why Justin Townes Earle is considered a forefather of Contemporary Americana. As a recently married, sober man JTE writes from a point of maturity and content we’ve not seen before on past records. “One day I just realized it’s not cool to die young, and it’s even less cool to die after 30,” Justin states as he reflects on a life past and his newly found clarity. What he’s created is an album that’s raw, honest and personal in a way he hasn’t touched upon since his debut EP, Yuma.
Co-produced along side longtime engineer Adam Bednarik, Single Mothers shines in a world of pop-culture driven Ameri- cana records. “I don’t really know what Americana means anymore,” Justin laughs. “That’s not a slant on Americana, it’s just become a very unclassifiable genre. It’s gone seemingly pop. There are good parts to that, but it’s getting to a point where it won’t be able to redeem itself if it doesn’t slow down. Just like everything that gets popular.” With his heart and soul still rooted in Nashville, Single Mothers shows Justin’s continued combination of catchy songs and authenticity.
The album was recorded live with his four-piece touring band with only days of rehearsal leading up to recording to keep the ideas fresh. No overdubs, no other singers, no additional players – just a real, heartfelt performance capturing the moment. In fact, his songs “Picture in a Drawer’ and ‘It’s Cold in This House’ are only Justin, his guitar and his pedal steel player Paul Niehaus.
Earle’s new perspective is clear on Single Mothers as it opens with the track ‘Worried Bout The Weather,’ where we see the intimate, sensitive side of JTE. Here Justin rehashes feelings of trouble on the horizon singing “it don’t take a twister to wreck a home, don’t take a night to feel like you’re in the dark and all alone” – a theme that has surfaced before in his lyrics, but this time with a personal honesty and openness. Justin’s mood switches gears on the upbeat track ‘My Baby Drives.’ “My baby drives me to church on Sundays, take me to see my Momma on every
other Monday. Some might say I’m the luckiest man alive,” Justin croons light heartedly. On the title track ‘Single Mothers’ we hear feelings of resentment as JTE growls, “absent father, never offer even a dollar, he doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that he’s forfeited his rights to his own. Absent father is long gone.”
“As I’ve gotten older my anger comes from a very different place. It’s more rational and mature. I guess that comes along with clarity,” JTE reflects. Single Mothers finds Justin dealing with past struggles and anger with more ease than ever before. Creating a nostalgic feeling with the return to his signature sound, JTE takes listeners on a journey through some of his most personal stories yet on what can only be described as an authentic country record.
Single Mothers is due out September 9, 2014 on Vagrant Records.
BIOGRAPHY
by Steve Leggett
The son of maverick Texas songwriter Steve Earle (and carrying the middle name of his dad's mentor, Townes Van Zandt), Justin Townes Earle shares just a hint of his father's vocal style in his voice, and like the elder Earle, he writes his own songs, but aside from the fact that both Earles fall to the country side of the Mason-Dixon Line, there are probably far more differences in their musical approaches than there are similarities. The younger Earle grew up in Nashville and took up music early, playing in the bluegrass/ragtime combo the Swindlers and the hard-rocking Distributors; he also toured (playing guitar and keyboards) with his father's road band the Dukes, picking up a few of the elder Earle's old bad habits in the process, but like his father, he eventually kicked his drug habit and put his life in order. Developing his own writing and playing style, a hybrid mixing folk and blues with strong early country leanings, Earle self-released the six-song EP Yuma in 2007. The release attracted the attention of Chicago's Bloodshot Records, who signed Earle and put out a full-length project, The Good Life, produced by R.S. Field and recorded at House of David Studios, in 2008. He followed it with Midnight Movies in 2009 and Harlem River Blues in 2010. Earle toured extensively behind this last album and won nearly universal critical acclaim. He followed it up with Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, in the spring of 2012.
OFFICIAL SITE