Good Livin'

It seemed incongruous back in 2007 when young singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle moved to the bustling metropolis of Manhattan, the New York City epicentre seemingly miles removed from both the authentic country music he was peddling and America's Deep South, the land where he grew up and with which his music was so synonymous. For a while the urban locale seemed a good fit for Earle – it certainly inspired his award-winning third album, Harlem City Blues, in more than just name – but now events have transpired to return him to the city of his childhood, and all seems right in his world again.

“I moved back to Nashville – I can afford a much larger living space here than I could in New York,” he smiles. “I just discovered that my mum is at a point in her life where she needs my help a bit, and it's a lot more feasible for me to help her living here in Nashville for a lot of reasons.

“So far I haven't spent a lot of time here [since I moved back] – we've been touring so much recently – but I'm enjoying it for the most part. It's definitely a little 'closed in' feeling compared to New York. Unfortunately the New York Times keeps writing articles about how cool Nashville is, so it's probably not going to be too cool for too much longer.”

Of course, this relocation also places Earle back within a short drive of another Tennessee music mecca, Memphis, the city whose rich soul history so inspired 2012's brilliant fourth record, Nothing's Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now. The album was awash with beautiful horn flourishes reminiscent of the Stax Records sound which sprang up and thrived in Memphis from the late-'50s through to the early-'70s.

“I grew up aware of that music, very much so,” Earle continues. “I grew up in a mixed but mostly black neighbourhood in Nashville, so when I'd go to my friends' houses for dinner and stuff like that, their parents would be listening to Al Green and Chas & Dave and that sorta thing. I heard a lot of real pure, deep soul growing up.

“Memphis has an amazing music history, and it's a music history that's very much 'of the people' – a very working-class music history; guys who got their gig out of sheer talent, not because they knew anybody – all that mattered back then was sheer talent. It's amazing that so many talented people managed to congregate in the same place at the same time.”

Stax was also important for its policy of non-segregation, not something common in Memphis, especially during the volatile late '60s following the assassination there of Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

“It definitely was,” Earle agrees. “People weren't ready for Booker T & The MGs when they came out – they weren't ready for an integrated band. But they were just undeniable, that's the thing – they were just undeniably one of the most talented bands anybody had ever seen.”

Of course musical segregation wasn't restricted to Memphis; it had existed for decades in blues music and the seemingly arbitrary racial distinction between 'race records' and 'hillbilly records' as country music developed.

“It kind of started with Hank Williams – if you listen to his music you can obviously hear some things that he didn't learn from no white boy, especially the 12-bar blues,” Earle laughs. “Hank Williams didn't come up with that. Hank Williams had a very little documented opiate problem – he was a morphine addict – and he would go to the juke joints in the black neighbourhoods to score his dope, and that's where a lot of people say that he picked up the 12-bar blues.”

Justin Townes Earle was schooled in such rich country music traditions from a very young age – obviously growing up in Nashville the son of Steve Earle it was going to be hard to avoid – and this passion and knowledge came to the fore last year when he was invited to help curate the celebration of Woody Guthrie's centennial year.

“He's very responsible for me being a lot of what I am as an artist,” Earle marvels of Guthrie's influence. “I love the simplicity of his approach, and I like the way he talked – it's more like the way I talk. I like pretty much everything about him; he's definitely a very big influence.

“It was a lot of fun, and I was glad that I was able to do it and was trusted to do it. I was asked by [Woody's daughter] Nora Guthrie to put those shows on – she said, 'I have these dates booked for a Woody show' and basically I was told, 'Do a Woody Guthrie tribute, but don't just get up and play a bunch of Woody Guthrie songs.' It was kind of shocking at first, but you don't turn that offer down, and I think it turned out pretty well – I think everybody walked away happy which is all I can ask for.

“I brought some different people in for it – I had Joe Pug, and John McCauley from Deer Tick, and The Low Anthem – and I got them all to show where the bodies were buried; how Woody Guthrie influenced them. And I also had Joe Klein, who wrote the Woody Guthrie biography, A Life – he's a very trusted political correspondent, and quite famous too – and he took time out of his schedule to come and do it. So I had a little bit of hope that I was going to do something good right from the start just because I got Joe Klein to agree to it.”

Earle has earned a reputation as being something of a chameleon amidst the boundaries of authentic Americana, each album having a distinct tone different to its predecessor, and he divulges that his next collection of songs is again expected to take an exciting new route.

“I'm writing a new record right now – I've written about three or four songs – and these songs are going to take a little more time because I'm having three background singers, so I have to write my parts and then I have to write the background singers' parts too. It's going to be interesting, I'm going to approach it with basically a good idea of what the sound I'm going for is – something like Ray Charles' Hit The Road Jack kinda stuff, and things like that.

“It's fun to write that way, but it can be frustrating too – I find myself with this [new] style of songwriting not using my usual method of just carrying a note pad around, I do have to actually sit down and look at a piece of paper, which is something that I'm not used to but I'm getting used to.”

Justin Townes Earle will be playing the following dates:

Wednesday 13 February - Lizotte's, Newcastle NSW
Friday 15 February - Capitol Theatre, Tamworth NSW
Saturday 16 February - Lismore Star Court Theatre, Lismore NSW
Sunday 17 February - Byron Community & Cultural Centre, Byron Bay NSW
Tuesday 19 February - The Old Museum, Brisbane QLD