Midnight At The Movies - Justin Townes Earle

Country music is in a weird state nowadays. It shed its associations with blues, folk, and jazz long ago and has made a pretty solid bid for mainstream pop/rock appeal since the 1970's. In the new millennium, America's heartland music seemingly only offers two possible career paths: that of the pop star cowboy/girl or that of the self-consciously old-fashioned "alt-country" singer. Sure, every now and then you get a Brad Paisley, who turns the notion of the CMT-bred country superstar on its head with his clever songwriting and guitar-slinging, but what antidote do we have against the seemingly endless stream of phony purveyors of long-vanished Americana? Enter Justin Townes Earle. Son of Steve Earle of Guitar Town fame, Justin is a tattooed Woody Guthrie for the iPod age. He's already proven himself in performances at both the Grand Ole Opry and indie rock clubs across the country. What makes his tunes so damn good, however, is his lyrical talent, a real treasure in the increasingly homogenized world of country. You won't find any redneck or hillbilly clichés here, nor will you find the sort of ersatz front-porch folk you're likely to hear from, say, Ryan Adams. Instead, Justin establishes himself as the latest in an illustrious line of classically modern country singers. He is, like Gram Parsons and his namesake Townes Van Zandt before him, a country songwriter gloriously out of step with contemporary trends, yet more evocative of what it means to be an American in the modern age than any of the hickish superstars you're like to hear on the radio. "They Killed John Henry" is old-timey storytelling at its finest, while "Mama's Eyes" and "Midnight At The Movies" are wistful and touching odes to Justin's mama and the Greenwich Village scene of the early 1960's, respectively. Have yerself a listen.

I am my father's son, I've never known when to shut up.