The finest songs from our favorite rock rebel, Steve Earle, tend to impart some hard-wrought, bruised ‘n’ battered lesson. Earle’s struggles with drug addiction during the early portion of his career and his subsequent recovery—which has yielded some of his best music—makes the man something of a teacher of hard truths, a role he’s played across albums including 2007’s Washington Square Serenade and in his role as a Narcotics Anonymous mentor on "The Wire."
But it’s worth noting that Earle learned a good deal of his lessons from another teacher. Earle returns to The Paramount Theater on Saturday night in support of his new album, Townes, a collection of 15 songs by Townes Van Zandt. There’s plenty of press on Earle’s relationship with Van Zandt, but Earle’s feelings towards his friend are summed up best by a single, oft-used soundbite: ”Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that."
Feedback is a Townes Van Zandt fan as well. (In fact, local Thomas Gunn is known to do a great cover of "Rake," one of our favorite TVZ tunes.) So he was thrilled when Snag Films, which hosts a handful of quality rock docs, sent us a copy of the Townes Van Zandt documentary, Be Here to Love Me. Watch the movie—yup, the whole darned thing—below. And get psyched; Earle’s set is going to be a good’n:
And, as a bonus, here’s a great version of "Rake" from the man himself: