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Country-rock rebel Steve Earle joins forces with the first family
of bluegrass, By Scott Nygaard "Bluegrass is the original alternative country music," says country music's most talented rebel, Steve Earle, and The Mountain, his new record with the Del McCoury Band, proves his point. Earle, who has spent time in prison on drug charges, probably has multiple meanings for the phrase "high and lonesome," but his love of bluegrass and acoustic music is genuine and has provided a fertile outlet for his songwriting. Songs like "The Mountain" and "Pilgrim" are some of Earle's best, while "Carrie Brown" and "Long, Lonesome Highway Blues" are destined to become bluegrass festival favorites. Earle's Grammy-nominated previous album, El Corazón, included a traditional bluegrass cut recorded with the McCoury Band that left his fans wanting a lot more. In choosing the McCourys to be his accompanists and collaborators on The Mountain, Earle picked the cream of the bluegrass crop. The title of their other new album, The Family, reflects their standing as the first family of bluegrass (Del's sons Ronnie [mandolin] and Rob [banjo] have been members of their father's band since the '80s), and their 24 International Bluegrass Music Association awards make them the most honored band in bluegrass. The Family's timeless sound includes originals from the McCourys, ancient-sounding songs from contemporary writers, bluegrass classics from Bill Monroe and Jimmy Martin, and John Sebastian's "Nashville Cats." The band's records, the last three of which were produced by Jerry Douglas and Ronnie McCoury, are known for faithfully capturing the trademark McCoury combination of fiery instrumental work and searing vocals. I caught up with Steve Earle and Del and Ronnie McCoury at Earle's Nashville studio, Room and Board, and in between hilarious tales of musicianly misdeeds we managed to squeeze in a few words about music. How did you decide to do this whole record with Del and his band? EARLE It was a decision that took place in stages. I'd wanted to make an acoustic record for a long time. That was one of the things I butted heads with MCA about for years. So when I got out of jail, I made Train a Comin' for Winter Harvest. We were already looking for a major-label deal, but I decided I would make that record so nobody could tell me not to. The original plan was that the record after El Corazón would be another Train band record. It would be me and Pete [Rowan] and Roy [Huskey Jr.] and Norman [Blake]. And then Roy got sick again and died. And I couldn't see just plugging another bass player into that band. I needed to leave it alone for a while. Pete's my original connection to this music. Most everything that I know about it I learned from Peter Rowan. We talked about working together a long time before we actually did, and he's a really good teacher. Actually, my original connection to this music was social. When I first moved to Nashville, I was playing bass for Guy Clark, and we all hung out in the same places as the bluegrass players. They were the only ones that had any pot. Anyway, through Pete I got to know Bill [Monroe] a little bit for the last couple years he was around. I was really lucky there. Did you hang out with him and play? EARLE I went out to the house a couple times. He wasn't really playing much by the time I met him, because it was after his stroke. Del, you played with Monroe in the early '60s. How did you meet him? DEL McCOURY I'd played banjo in several different bands up in my part of the country, up in York County, Pennsylvania, and I just happened to be playing with Jack Cooke. Jack played guitar and sang lead with Bill for about four years, and we were playing this little club in Baltimore one night when Bill come in the door and just sat right down. I thought, "Man, that's something. Monroe's in here." When we had a break, he told Jack, "I need you to go with me to New York to play this university up there," and Jack said, "Do you have a banjo player?" and Monroe said, "No," and he said, "Well, just take Del." That was the first time I met Bill. So I went with him up there the following night, and that's when he offered me a job picking with him. But he didn't want me on banjo, he wanted me on guitar and singing. RONNIE McCOURY You know, I saw Monroe at Lincoln Center in New York City on a trip I took with my dad when I was 13. After I came home, I just wanted to play mandolin all the time. That was December, and I started my first gig with Dad in May 1981, and I've been playing ever since, sink or swim. I saw you playing with Steve at a workshop at MerleFest a couple of years ago, Ronnie. When did you guys get together? RONNIE McCOURY Steve called me to do a session. It was a tune on El Corazón called "You Know the Rest." And then he called me for the V-Roys, a band he was producing. That's kind of how I got to know him at first. We played MerleFest, and he asked me to play with him. Then the next thing he called us to do was the song he wrote to sing with Dad, "I Still Carry You Around." EARLE There were two things that pushed me towards doing this bluegrass record. One was the Train band playing on December 1, '95, at TPAC [Tennessee Performing Arts Center]. Bill Monroe walked out on the stage, and I lost control of a show for the first time in my life. Bill does about four songs and I think I've got him off stage. He's headed back to the chairs and Pete's kind of walking him over there, and somebody yells, "Merry Christmas, Bill," and he goes, "OK we could do that. [sings] Christmas time's a comin'." And there we go on another five songs and we're off to the races. I just completely lost it. So that had a pretty big effect. The other thing was that I did a gig with Del's band at the Station Inn [a Nashville bluegrass club] that was the first in this No Depression series they put together. So we had to work up a whole set. We did a bunch of my songs, mostly Train band stuff. That gig went really well, and I got through the whole thing working one mic without putting Del's eye out, which I was really proud of. DEL McCOURY Yeah. You did good. EARLE At that point, I decided I wanted to write a whole record of new bluegrass songs. Del, what did you think when Steve said he wanted to do a whole record with your band? DEL McCOURY I thought, "That'll probably take a long time, to write a whole record." But it didn't take him long. That's what surprised me—how quick he wrote all those songs and had it all ready to record. He's such a great songwriter. I admire him for the way he can do that. He wrote those songs in nothing flat. He gave us tapes and we played those tapes on the bus. It was during our busy season and his too—right in the summertime. We didn't really rehearse anything till we got in the studio. You sang a song of Steve's on an earlier record. EARLE "Call Me If You Need a Fool." DEL McCOURY Yeah, that was the first one. EARLE Did Ken [Irwin, head of Rounder Records] come up with that song, or did you bring that song in? DEL McCOURY I guess Ken found it. EARLE Ken is good at finding songs outside of bluegrass to be bluegrass songs. I never would have thought of that song as a bluegrass song. But think of the context that I wrote it in—I had a three-piece rockabilly band. And [bluegrass is] where some of the original material for [rockabilly] came from in the first place, "Blue Moon of Kentucky" being a case in point. Ken called me and asked me to write another verse. This was at kind of a low point in my life. The wheels were getting ready to come completely off. It was right after the Hard Way tour ended, and I was living in L.A. I thought I was writing songs for another record, but I didn't record again until almost five years later when we started Train a Comin'. So I wrote another verse and called Ken back and read it to him over the telephone. It was probably two more years before I actually heard the cut, because I sort of dropped off the face of the Earth. But it's a really great record to have a song on. Ronnie, do you have a lot to do with finding songs for your band? RONNIE McCOURY Yeah, we all kind of pull it together, and people send us songs all the time. For the last record [The Family], I found some and Dad was listening to the radio and came up with a couple. He suggested we do "Nashville Cats." EARLE That was a great idea, and it's a great version of it. Is that verse about the Nashville mothers on the original? DEL McCOURY Yeah, it's the last verse. RONNIE McCOURY "There's 16,821 mothers in Nashville." DEL McCOURY "All their friends play music and they ain't uptight if one of their kids will." RONNIE McCOURY "So it's custom made for every mother's son to be a guitar picker in Nashville / And I'm glad I got the chance to say a word about the music and the—" EARLE "mothers in Nashville." I used to do that song a few years ago, and I used to change that line a lot [laughter]. Excerpted from the complete interview in Acoustic Guitar magazine June 1999, No. 78.
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY STEVE EARLE AND THE DEL McCOURY BAND The Mountain, E-Squared 1064 (1999). E-Squared, 1815 Division St., Suite 101, Nashville, TN 37203; (615) 320-1200; E2Rex2@aol.com. STEVE EARLE El Corazón, E-Squared/Warner Brothers 46789 (1997). I Feel Alright, E-Squared/Warner Brothers 46201 (1996). Train a Comin’, E-Squared/Warner Brothers 46355 (1995). THE DEL McCOURY BAND The Family, Ceili Music 2001 (1999). Ceili Music, 329 Rockland Rd., Hendersonville, TN 37075; www.skaggsfamilyrecords.com. The Cold Hard Facts, Rounder 0363 (1996). A Deeper Shade of Blue, Rounder 0303 (1993). Blue Side of Town, Rounder 0292 (1992).
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