THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO STEVE EARLE
Steve Earle’s life has hardly been short of incident. Now in his 65th year, America’s original hard-core troubadour has been through prison time, drug and alcohol addiction and more marriages than seems feasible. Except for a fallow period in the early 90s, when his personal issues came to a head, the prolific roots-rocker has amassed a remarkable body of music, in addition to his work as a playwright, novelist, poet, actor and political activist. His latest album with the Dukes, the moving and fiercely brilliant Ghosts Of West Virginia, centres on the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion that claimed 29 lives in 2010.
THE UK LOVES ME MORE THAN MY HOMELAND DOES
I sell more tickets in Britain than I do anywhere else in the world. I don’t know why, but it’s always been that way, except for a moment in Canada in the eighties, when I played arenas during the cycle. I started coming to England in 1986 and it was weird. There was a bunch of
