Poets and Prophets: Steve Earle

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Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Steve Earle

Steve Earle is a singer-songwriter, producer, author, playwright, radio host, actor, and activist. One of American roots music’s most enduring and influential artists, his expansive catalog includes songs recorded by Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, the Highwaymen, Miranda Lambert, Patty Loveless, and Ricky Scaggs. In 1974, at age nineteen, Earle hitchhiked from San Antonio to Nashville, where he quickly joined a group of fellow bohemian Texas expats that included his mentor, the songwriting giant Guy Clark. After a decade as a staff writer for various song-publishing companies, Earle signed with MCA Records. His debut album, the seminal Guitar Town, was released in 1986 to rousing critical acclaim and included two Top Ten hits. Never one to be confined by genre, the creatively restless Earle continued to push boundaries with the subsequent albums Exit 0, Copperhead Road, and The Hard Way. Following a four-year hiatus in the early 1990s, a newly sober Earle launched an impressive comeback and remarkably fertile creative period. In 1996, he founded the E-Squared label and released six intensely personal, wide-ranging, and critically praised albums in eight years, including The Mountain, a bluegrass set recorded with the Del McCoury Band. Earle has made twenty-one studio albums, but his career extends beyond music. He has written a book of short fiction, a novel, and a play, and produced eleven albums for other artists, including Lucinda Williams’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. He is the host of the Hardcore Troubadour radio show, has appeared in several films, and has had recurring roles on two HBO series, The Wire and Treme. Earle has won three Grammys for Best Contemporary Folk Album, was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2020, and joined the Grand Ole Opry in September. The Museum’s Allison Moorer will host this program, which will be illustrated with photos, film, and recordings.