Album of the Week: I Feel Alright

Well, the summer is winding down. That means that the other big music blog project, Summer Song Challenge, is winding down with it. One of my hopes for that thing was that we'd be able to get a few people more involved in Record Club, through the confidence-building exercise of writing about music every single day for 99 days. In that regard, over the next four weeks (the final four of summer), the albums will be chosen by some Song Challenge regulars who have participated in RC occasionally, but might now feel like they want to keep writing about music long after Labor Day '23 has passed.

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WEEK 237 — August 13-19, 2023

I Feel Alright

by Steve Earle

LISTEN:

Spotify | YouTube | Bandcamp | Apple

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PICKED BY PAT

PAT'S COMMENTS: "Steve Earle is one of those recurring characters in my pop culture journey. I'm not sure if there's anyone else who has music featured in both The Wire and Talladega Nights. All due respect to Mr. Sheeran, but Earle's 'Galway Girl' is better. It turns out I like country music a whole lot when it isn't just flag-humping bullshit. Earle seems like a pretty righteous dude, and I'd like to listen to more of him."

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ALBUM DETAILS

GENRE: Country rock, alt-country, Americana, roots rock

RELEASED: March 5, 1996

LENGTH: 38:57

TRACKLIST:

1. Feel Alright
2. Hard-Core Troubadour
3. More Than I Can Do
4. Hurtin' Me, Hurtin' You
5. Now She's Gone
6. Poor Boy
7. Valentine's Day
8. The Unrepentant
9. CCKMP
10. Billy and Bonnie
11. South Nashville Blues
12. You're Still Standin' There

LYRICS: Genius.com

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ARTIST DETAILS

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

ABOUT: Stephen Earle was born January 17, 1955 in Virginia, but his family moved to San Antonio, TX, shortly after, so he grew up there. He's been playing guitar since age eleven, and at fourteen he ran away from home to find Townes Van Zandt, his idol. He eventually found him in Nashville, and Earle became a fixture in the Nashville country scene in the '70s and '80s. He's been a musical artist, songwriter, actor, author, activist, and a father to the late, great Justin Townes Earle.

DISCOGRAPHY: I counted 22 studio LPs, with I Feel Alright being his sixth. The first was Guitar Town in 1986. The most recent couple were tribute albums, with 2022's JERRY JEFF featuring songs written by Jerry Jeff Walker, and 2021's J.T., honoring Justin Townes Earle and financially supporting Justin's own daughter, Etta.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

READING SOME SHIT: reprinted earlier this year, a 1999 interview with Hot Press

WATCHING SOME SHIT: "Feel Alright" in early 2017 at City Winery (but not the one in Philly, I had to check)

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: A bunch of personnel connections, as there are usually are with country rock records that we cover (and which I always appreciate, having to fill out this section with something every week). Garry Tallent plays bass here, and he is also the bassist of and a founding member of the E Street Band, so that means he shows up on The Rising too. Roy Huskey Jr. plays bass on a couple songs too, just like he did with Dolly Parton (in a dark humor Wikipedia moment, the article indicates that he died of lung cancer in '97, and his featured picture is him with a cigar in his mouth). Greg Morrow plays the drums, and he's previously and since played drums with Parton, the Chicks, Reba McEntire, and John Hall of Hall and Oates. Richard Bennett co-produces and plays guitar. No direct RC connections, but his brother, Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, has played drums for "Weird Al" Yankovic since 1980, which means he was on Mandatory Fun.

This won't be the first time I mention The Wire in this section. But here we finally have a member of the cast as a Record Club artist. Here is the tally so far of ever mention of the television show we've had through the past five years of RC: Steve Earle covers "Way Down in the Hole" for Season 5, and John Campbell covered "Way Down in the Hold" for a potential Season 6; Cautious Clay co-wrote the Taylor Swift song that features Stringer Bell; CANDIACE had previously made a song featuring Slim Charles. I also just scrolled through a 190-song list of all the songs featured throughout the series, and saw tunes from the Roots, Diana Ross, Martha and the Vandellas, Thin Lizzy (the title track to Jailbreak), and T-Pain.

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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!