Transcendental Blues

Performer: Steve Earle
Engineer: Ciaran Byrne; Paul Smith; Ray Kennedy
Producer: Twangtrust
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: Personnel: Steve Earle (vocals, guitar, harmonium, Mini-Moog synthesizer); Darrell Scott (vocals, banjo); Tim O'Brien (vocals, mandolin); Tom Littlefield, Stacey Earle (vocals); Doug Lancio (guitar); David Steele (mandola); Casey Driessen (fiddle); Benmont Tench (piano, organ); Dan Metz, Ray Kennedy, Kelley Looney (bass); Dennis Crouch (upright bass); Will Rigby, Patrick Earle (drums, percussion); Ron Vance (drums). Includes liner notes by Steve Earle. TRANSCENDENTAL BLUES was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Personnel: Steve Earle (vocals, guitar, mandolin, harmonica); Eric "Roscoe" Ambel (guitar, background vocals); Kelley Looney (bass, background vocals); Will Rigby (drums, background vocals). Personnel: Steve Earle (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, acoustic 12-string guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, harmonium, mini-Moog synthesizer); Tim O'Brien (vocals, mandolin); Tom Littlefield, Stacey Earle (vocals); David Steele (electric guitar, electric 12-string guitar, bouzouki); David Steel (electric guitar, bouzouki); Doug Lancio, Ray Kennedy (electric guitar); Jim Murray (gut-string guitar); Mary Shannon (banjo); Bill Wright (bouzouki); David Davidson , David Angell (violin); Yvonne Kane, Liz Kane, Casey Driessen (fiddle); Kristin Wilkinson (viola); John Catchings (cello); Sharon Shannon (accordion); Benmont Tench (piano, organ); James Blennerhassett, Dennis Crouch (upright bass); Will Rigby, Patrick Earle (drums, percussion); Noel Bridgeman (drums). Audio Mixers: Ray Kennedy; Twangtrust; Patrick Earle. Liner Note Author: Steve Earle. Recording information: Frank's Auto, South Philly, PA; Room & Board; Totally Wired Studios, Dublin, Ireland. Illustrator: Tony Fitzpatrick. Photographer: Michael Wilson . On his fifth album since sobering up in the mid-'90s, Steve Earle avoids striking any sour notes as he mixes disparate musical ingredients including Bill Monroe, RUBBER SOUL, Irish reels and sturdy folk-rock into an eclectic and innovative stew of stellar songwriting. This country rebel's thirst for musical challenge allows him to include the high lonesome sound of heavenly harmonies and whining fiddle, such as on the thoroughly bluegrass "Until The Day I Die," on the same album as the Indian-like mysticism of the title track (featuring members of Philly rock band Marah). Earle's collaborative instincts find him joined by Irish musician Sharon Shannon and her band. "Steve's Last Ramble" and "The Galway Girl" both overflow with bouzouki, fiddle, accordion and harp to form TRANSCENDENTAL BLUES' breezy core. Elsewhere, Earle and sister Stacey make like a modern day Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris on "When I Fall," while the Beatles-esque melancholy of "The Boy Who Never Cried" and the grinding garage rock of "All My Life," make for an interesting juxtaposition. Earle's most personal note this time around is "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)," an anti-capital punishment narrative based on an execution the singer witnessed first hand.

Rolling Stone (6/22/00, pp.134-5) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...An intermittenly twangy, often trippy and, yes, generally transcendant outing....Earle keeps his material hewed to a basic theme - the universality of the blues - and finds that home truth everywhere his muse takes him..." Spin (7/00, pp.155,157) - 7 out of 10 - "...The record sounds great...[his] most ambitious yet....[He] explores some well-traveled roads: Beatlesque psychedelia; Irish reels; bluegrass....and, of course, the guns-blazin' badass stompers..." Entertainment Weekly (6/9/00, pp.78-9) - "...He's thrown open the gates. Walking through the psychedelic title track, the RUBBER SOUL-ish pop, the garage rock, and the lovely Eire-meets-Tennessee 'The Galway Girl', BLUES is his musical road map..." - Rating: A- Q (7/00, p.114) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...There is no doubt that his songwriting chops just keep getting better...proving his mastery of every country-rock style..." Magnet (1-2/01, p.44) - Included in Magnet's "20 Best Albums of 2000" - "...The crowning achievement of Nashville's king of the road..." Down Beat (3/01, p.73) - 4.5 out of 5 - "Th ebest of Earle's career is a brilliant melange of rootsy country, blazing rock, Irish folk, uptempo bluegrass and Beatlesque pop..." No Depression (5-6/00, pp.110-1) - "...There is much to suggest that a little less hair and a little more gut are matters of nuance,, and nuance is what it's eventually all about....it is socked with good things...making loyalists glad they've been on board for the whole dang oeuvre..." Mojo (Publisher) (7/00, p.106) - "...He bares his spiritual chest...with a Lennonesque honesty and a vocal delivery that increasingly resembles Tom Petty's sub-Dylan sneer..."

Steve Earle did for country in the 1980s what Waylon Jennings did for it in the '70s--released it from the shackles of commerciality and overproduction by introducing a bad-ass, rock-friendly outlaw aesthetic. Besides his talents as a singer/songwriter, Earle is a producer/entrepreneur who's worked with many other artists (some on his own label) and helped foster a new wave of progressive country. He's also a dedicated political activist who's done much for a variety of progressive causes.

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