Steve Earle & Allison Moorer w/ Happy Traum - Residency January 9, 2012

Join City Winery in welcoming the very talented Steve Earle for a Winter esidency this January and February. The five-week run will see Steve play a special series of shows, and will feature a roster of invited guest and friends.

ABOUT STEVE EARLE

In the strictest sense, Steve Earle isn't a country artist, he's a roots rocker. Earle emerged in the mid-'80s, after Bruce Springsteen had popularized populist rock & roll and Dwight Yoakam had kick-started the neo-traditionalist movement in country music. At first, Earle appeared to be more toward the rock side than country. He played stripped-down neo-rockabilly that occasionally verged on outlaw country. His unwillingness to conform to the rules of Nashville or to rock & roll meant that he never broke through into the mainstream. Instead, he cultivated a dedicated cult following, drawing from both the country and rock audiences. Toward the early '90s, his career was thrown off track by personal problems and substance abuse, but in the mid-'90s he re-emerged stronger and healthier, producing two of his most critically acclaimed albums ever.

A prolific writer, thinker, actor and singer, Steve Earle has a dedicated following of fans who understand the truth of the words he creates. While Earle had long displayed a strong political streak (particularly in his opposition to the death penalty), his leftist views took center stage on his 2002 album Jerusalem. Written and recorded in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Jerusalem dealt openly with Earle's divided feelings about America's "war on terror" and the West's ignorance of the Islamic faith, and included a song about John Walker Lindh, a young American who was discovered to be fighting with Taliban forces, called "John Walker's Blues."

Earle's refusal to condemn Lindh in his lyrics quickly made the song (and the album) a political hot potato, but Earle embraced the controversy and became a frequent guest on news and editorial broadcasts, defending his work and clarifying his views on terrorism, patriotism, and the role of popular artists in a time of crisis. Earle's tour in support of Jerusalem was documented in the 2003 concert film and live album Just an American Boy, and in the summer of 2004, as the American occupation of Iraq dragged on and an upcoming presidential election loomed in the minds of many, Earle released The Revolution Starts...Now , an album of songs informed by the war in Iraq and the abuses of the George W. Bush administration.

Official Website: http://citywinery.com/events/192017