Justin Townes Earle sitting with Gianluca

Justin Townes Earle sitting with Gianluca

“You’d have to be deaf dumb and blind and then you probably still have a chance of this city influencing you,” says tall, lanky songwriter Justin Townes Earle about New York City, his new adopted home. We are in an apartment about a block from his and -appropriately for someone who describes himself as an American music preservationist – around the corner where Leadbelly lived in the forties.
It’s only been a couple of years since Justin Townes Earle and this correspondent first discussed his life and music as well as his background – He’s Steve Earle’s son, songwriter Stacey Earle’s nephew and is named after his father’s mentor Townes Van Zandt. His debut CD, The Good Life, had just been released and we were talking backstage before Justin was about to play a 160 capacity venue people of which maybe a half might have been paying customers. A lot’s happened in the two years since. He picked up a Best Emerging Artist award from the Americana Music Association, and has seen his star rise from strength to strength with his third CD – ‘Harlem River Blues’ – receiving accolades and five star reviews across the board. The 160 seater half-filled room has now been replaced by 1400 seaters.
Though much has changed, much is the same. The easy confidence and low-key demeanor has remained though the clothes are decidedly alternative new yorker. Shoulder-length straggly hair has won over the short gelled hair from when he still lived in Nashville. Back in 2008 he had been four years sober and drug free. This particular day he is four weeks sober. He had barely started his tour last year when he was arrested for battery, public drunkenness, and resisting arrest after a show in Minneapolis and returned to rehab to clean up again. We get this out of the way at the very beginning.

Listen to the whole conversation at www.SittingWith.com

It sounded bizarre on paper, William E Whitmore playing in a Winery. Yes, that William E Whitmore, full sleeve tattoo-wearing, weather-beaten former rodie for hardcore Iowa bands like Ten Grand, playing in a wood panelled winery and fancy food in SOHO, New York City among the $300 chablis and $700 Chateau Rothchild. Ten minutes before his set he came crashing through the door with a banjo and a guitar. He had woken in his recently converted (“This summer I just put in electricity”) corn crib that stands on the Whitmore family hundred and fifty acre farm in Lee County Iowa. Well the man travels light. He is taken past the rows of tables, waiting to be filled that evening with Amy Mann fans and through where He has been booked to play: on the loading doc in the winery’s parking lot, during an afternoon weekly mini-festival at which wine (and some premium beer) and snacks are served – Now that’s more like it!
The humor is not lost on William. With the exception of a performance at Bonaroo he has spent the last two months on the farm “not really seeing that many people”. It was an exuberant set with as many guffaws of laughter coming from the stage as off the stage. during which he came out into the audience and shook hands. He has good reason to be in such a good mood these days. The tragic circumstances that informed his first three albums is much behind him. He has signed to major label Anti Records. The new record is still carries the sparse, weather-beaten, son of the soil material delivered with shovels of Iowa dirt.

Well what more can I say? Their songs do all the talking. They are true gents and were a pleasure to have on.

On of the last links to a world that no longer exists. He tells tales of his thirty years as a hobo, riding the rails and hustling with loaded dice. Here he is at home standing in front of a framed poster of Charley Patton who died in 1934 when Honeyboy was seventeen. Listen to the Honeyboy reminisce about his hobo days here. There’s a feature article I wrote for a Mississippi newspaper here. honeyboy-ddt-6409

Yancey lives on a second story walkup on Chicago’s West side where his friends have stopped by for brandy and cigarettes. The West Side is bang in the heart of what used to be Chicago’s blues scene. It was the domain of legendary names like Otis Rush, Jimmy Dawkins, Magic Sam, and ruled by Howling Wolf. Muddy Waters ruled the South side. “It used to be there was a club on every corner,” drawls Tail in a thick , rich baritone….

With Johnny B. Moore to the right