Album Review: Steve Earle – J.T. (New West)

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With the new year kicking in, we at The 13th Floor are determined to cover as much new music as possible. Our first entry is this new album by Steve Earle titled J.T.

J.T. is, of course, Justin Townes Earle, Steve’s son who died this past August aged 38. January 4th would have been Justin’s 39th birthday and so Steve Earle and his Dukes will release J.T. featuring 10 songs written by Justin and one written especially for the album by Steve.

Please welcome our newest member of The 13th Floor family, Dave Kane, a longtime Steve Earle fan and a keen music journalist who has been listening to the new album and has delivered this review:

J.T. is a recorded document of a father celebrating his son’s life and undoubtable talent using songs Justin carved out over his career and one of Steve’s own.

“For better or worse, right or wrong, I loved Justin Townes Earle more than anything else on this earth. That being said, I made this record, like every other record I’ve ever made… for me. It was the only way I knew to say goodbye”, writes Steve Earle

It’s raw, it’s honest, and damn entertaining.  It will make you encounter parts of yourself that may cause you to feel a little uncomfortable then lets you tap your toes for a while. But that’s what good music does.

The performances and recording of Steve Earle’s that I’ve seen and heard have seemed a paradox. A sometimes surly, sometimes disarmingly tender, sweaty balding hairy man who is able to get the most amazing sounds from an instrument he looks to be attacking with his fingers. I was interested to see how he would approach this recording.

Steve plays guitar, mandolin, octave mandolin, harmonica and vocals. The latest Dukes lineup –  former member of Son Volt Chris Masterson on guitar, Chris’s amazing musical cohort and wife Eleanor Whitmore on fiddle & vocals, Ricky Ray Jackson’s  pedal steel, guitar & dobro just sings, former Cardinal Brad Pemberton, who would be used to holding this amount of talent together on drums & percussion, and Jeff Hill who’s played with Shooter Jennings and Rufus Wainwright on acoustic & electric bass.

I can’t imagine it would have been like in working on these sessions.  Some of the songs are so stripped back and vocally clear, others with a full band in various forms. The pedal steel swells, the fiddle lifts the melodies, there’s even a bit of church organ and the humbuckers come out when they drop the hammer on a couple of the darker tracks.

These tracks stuck out:

Far Away In Another Town – Starts in church, with organ swirls and pedal steel comes through to lift the melody. The arrangement allows the impact of the lyric to leak through until you realise what’s actually going on.

Maria – Is a simple little rocker, it lifts on the back of a really pretty mandolin hook, the band haven’t fallen into the trap of over doing the harmonies there aren’t any. Lovely song.

John Henry – Traditional with new surprises

Saint of Lost Causes – Growls like an old wolf. It’s dark and to the point.

Harlem River Blues – Starts with the coolest rhythm banging out on an acoustic guitar that then sits in the body of the song the whole way through. The rest of the band comes in and out of the arrangement over the original rhythm. Then we finally get to hear the vocal harmonies.

Last Words – Steve’s song for his son is a brutal listen, guitar, vocal, simple lyric, darkening strings.

“Don’t know why you hurt so bad
Just know you did and it makes me sad
Said everything I knew to say
Could not make it go away
But wherever you are travelin’ now
It doesn’t matter anyhow
Can’t help but wonder if you knew
You took a part of me with you
Last thing I said was I love you
You’re last words to me were I love you too”

“Justin Townes Earle left this world a little over a mile from where he came in, having seen more of it than most folks in his thirty-eight years before his all too short arc brought Him right back to where he started from; Nashville, Tennessee.”

Great songs, killer band, beautiful performances.

~Dave Kane

100% of the artist advances and royalties from J.T. will be donated to a trust for Etta St. James Earle, the three-year-old daughter of Justin and Jenn Earle.

We were fortunate enough to have Justin Townes Earle up to our studio in 2017 and he played us this beautiful version of Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’.

Here’s an interview we did with him in 2019, shortly before he passed:

Interview: Justin Townes Earle – “Time has passed. Shit has happened. You don’t like it – go f**k yourself”

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