Label
	New West Records
	Release
	2009
	Artist
	Steve Earle
	Rating

I pre-ordered this album quite far in advance because I was very excited when I read about it. Though I’m not the biggest fan of Steve Earle’s voice, the thought of him bringing an album full of Townes Van Zandt songs sounded awesome to me. Having listened through it a few times, I wouldn’t say that I’m blown away by it, but it’s something I’ll still listen to quite often. The first song Pancho & Lefty is one of my all time favourites, mainly Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard’s version, but the song itself is legendary and I think Steve does it justice, however Steve Earle isn’t the storyteller that Townes and Willie are, so it doesn’t come across as sincere as it perhaps should have. The up-tempo songs such as Colorado Girl, White Freightliner Blues are certainly more suited to his voice.

The rest of the album is largely a mix of blues and bluegrass sounds, and Steve has done a lot of rearrangement in favour of a more electric sound instead of the acoustic roots of the songs on the album. That’s were the second CD comes in and really makes the album worth getting. The disc known as ‘Basics’ is basically an acoustic version of most of the songs on the main CD which I think is an excellent idea and I urge other artists to do similar things. I found my enjoyment of most of the songs improved when listening to ’stripped down’ versions, which is much closer to how Townes used to sound.

Having said that though, it’s quite clear that the originals are better than the ones covered on this album. I think Steve Earle is the type of guy to do only Steve Earle songs, because that’s when he sounds the best. Artists like Johnny Cash are able to instantly apply their style into a cover, whereas it doesn’t quite work for Steve as well. I still think it’s a pretty good album though, I’ll be listening to it a lot I’m sure - but perhaps not enjoying it as much as I should have.

I’m gonna put Johnny Come Lately on….