It can’t be easy for a young roots-based singer-songwriter to be saddled with the last name of “Earle” much less the middle name of “Townes.” Yes, Justin Townes Earle is the son of gruff-voiced, Americana rebel poet Steve Earle, who named his first son after his biggest musical influence. But on his second album, Midnight at the Movies, Justin distinguishes himself from his famous father, not only in his mellifluous singing, reminiscent of Jimmie Rodgers and Willie Nelson, but in his wide-ranging musical style, steeped in country swing and old-time blues with side trips into alt-rock (he covers the Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” and counts Shane MacGowan and Malcolm Holcombe among his favorite songwriters). Justin tends to avoid comparisons to his father, but he addresses the subject in the song “Mama’s Eyes” (“I am my father’s son / I’ve never known when to shut up”), giving more credit to his mother’s enduring influence on his life (“I still see wrong from right / ’Cause I’ve got my mama’s eyes”). But there must be something in those South Texas Earle genes. Midnight at the Movies is a collection of trenchant, cinematic songwriting the equal of any of Justin’s father’s records, and the clear-eyed, light-of-day repentance conveyed in “Someday I’ll Be Forgiven for This” is classic Steve Earle.

It would be reasonable to assume that Justin Townes Earle had a musical upbringing, but he says, “I actually didn’t have a lot of music around me. I didn’t grow up with Steve Earle; I grew up with Carol Ann Earle. I started getting involved in music, like most kids my age, around the time Nirvana released ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’” Though music didn’t play a large part in his early life, he did start writing at a young age. “I was always that kid who had the desk surrounded by tape in the corner and wasn’t allowed to leave that taped area,” he says. “I was in maybe the first grade the first time a teacher discovered that, when I was in trouble, I was really good at lying to get out of it. She thought I should focus my energy on writing stories, so I started writing short stories and winning every little competition I entered.”

He started writing poetry at 14 and then his first song at 15, the bluesy “Halfway to Jackson,” which is included on Midnight at the Movies and about which Earle says, “I kinda took Mance Lipscomb’s version of ‘Big Boss Man’ and sped it way up.” By this point, Earle had become an avid fan of country blues. “On [Nirvana’s] Unplugged, Kurt Cobain did ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’ by Leadbelly,” Earle says. “So I discovered Leadbelly and then I discovered Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb and Mississippi John Hurt and Doc Watson.”

After discovering country blues, Earle “completely abandoned electric music and went all acoustic,” immersing himself in the two-finger picking of Hopkins and others. “I had a bunch of different Lightnin’ Hopkins stuff on cassette tape that I completely wore out,” he says. “I also had a couple of those Les Blank films—The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins and A Well-Spent Life. I think Les Blank had to have been a guitar player because when he was filming these guys, he filmed their hands more than he filmed their face. Those movies are really great, because you can actually see how these guys were making these sounds, and it was completely wrong how they were doing it. You can make those sounds the right way but they don’t sound the same.”

Earle’s aggressive “wrong” two-finger picking is featured on the short solo guitar instrumental “Dirty Rag” and “They Killed John Henry,” which he wrote as a tribute to his grandfather. “I was attempting to write a song that would honor the greatest man I’ve ever known, Jack Dublin Earle, my grandfather,” Earle says. “One thing that you get when you become an Earle is you get the ability to tell stories. My grandfather always had the great John Henry story that nobody had ever heard before, because he just made it up off the top of his head.” The song also references Joe Hill, in addition to John Henry and Jack Earle. “My family were all union members, and I thought that it would honor my grandfather more if I put him up against two of who I thought were the greatest men that I’ve ever heard of, whether they were real or not,” Earle says. “It was the best way I could think of to let everybody know what he meant to me and my life.”

Since the release of Midnight at the Movies, Earle has been touring heavily backed just by his Baxendale acoustic guitar and mandolinist/harmony vocalist Cory Younts, whom he met when he joined the Swindlers, a Nashville punk old-time band. “When I met them I was about 17 years old, and I’d never heard songs like ‘Old Joe Clark.’ I was strictly a blues guy,” Earle says. “But I started writing songs for ’em. I was always really lucky with the people that I ended up around. I’ve always had good influences. You know, I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but if I’ve done anything smart, it’s that I’ve paid attention to the artists that have come before me, and the right ones, I think, not the bullshit.”

For more about Justin Townes Earle, go to myspace.com/justintownesearle.

Photo credit, top, Joshua Black Wilkins