Justin Townes Earle

The Good Life (Bloodshot)

At the tender age of 25, Justin Townes Earle already must be sick of pondering his surname. Though his father, Steve Earle, once vowed to climb on Dylan’s coffee table to champion the late Townes Van Zandt, the next generation two-steps through such a musical minefield and turns out a winner with his Bloodshot Records debut, The Good Life. Enlisting a crackerjack band – including Dixie Chicks pedal-steel player Pete Finney and Buddy Miller’s drummer Brian Owings – Earle brings punky purpose to song styles first popularized when Betty Boop played the silver screen and Hank Williams still yodeled. He opens with the hillbilly swing of “Hard Livin’,” visits Lowell George’s stomping grounds on “South Georgia Sugar Babe,” and brings it home with “Far Away in Another Town.” Call him Smith, and he’d still be one to watch. (Saturday, March 15, Red Eyed Fly, 10pm.)

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This article appears in March 14 • 2008.

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