Guitar Town

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Guitar Town
Studio album by Steve Earle

Publication
(s)

1986

Label (s) MCA

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Country

Title (number)

10

running time

34min 35s

occupation
  • Richard Bennett - bass
  • Paul Franklin - pedal steel guitar
  • Ken Moore - synthesizer, organ
  • Steve Nathan - synthesizer

production

Tony Brown, Emory Gordy

Studio (s)

Sound Stage Studios, Nashville , Tennessee

chronology
- Guitar Town Exit 0
(1987)
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Guitar Town
  US 89 10/25/1986 (11 weeks)

Guitar Town is the debut album by American country musician Steve Earle . The music magazine Rolling Stone ranks it 482 on its list of the 500 best albums of all time . The album received gold status in the US in 1999 for 500,000 units sold. It reached number 89 on the Billboard 200 , was on the Top Country Albums for a total of 63 weeks, and reached number 1 there.

useful information

Steve Earle was signed by Epic Records in 1983 and recorded an album for them. After two years of disagreement between him and the record label, Epic broke the contract without releasing the finished album. While looking for a new record deal, Earle recorded a demo . Emory Gordy, a sound engineer Earle had worked with before, put Tony Brown and Jimmy Bowen of major label MCA in touch . This made Earle an offer even before he had written all the tracks for the album. Although Brown is listed in the credits as the producer of the album, it owes the typical guitar sound to the session bassist and co- songwriter Richard Bennett. The album received little feedback from the record company, who viewed it as Tony Brown's private project:

“I turned [Guitar Town] in and I didn't hear any response… I said 'What do you think? What are the singles? ' and somebody in the company said 'There are no singles.' ”

“I passed [Guitar Town] on and I got no answer ... I said, 'What do you guys think? What do we take as singles? ' and someone in the company said, 'There are no singles.' "

- Tony Brown

Earle got caught between the fronts within MCA, as an expression of which he played on the tour for the album one evening in the opening act for country legend George Jones and the next evening for the punk band The Replacements . He used drugs and came into conflict with the law. Despite the unfavorable overall circumstances, the album was a commercial success and was positively received because of the influences from rock music, especially by media from this area, and compared to Bruce Springsteen by some critics .

The album was one of the first country albums to be digitally recorded, mixed and mastered . Earle was accompanied during the recording by his live band The Dukes .

Track list

  1. Guitar Town (Earle) - 2:33
  2. Goodbye's All We've Got Left (Earle) - 3:16
  3. Hillbilly Highway (Earle, Hinson) - 3:36
  4. Good Ol 'Boy (Gettin' Tough) (Bennett, Earle) - 3:58
  5. My Old Friend the Blues (Earle) - 3:07
  6. Someday (Earle) - 3:46
  7. Think It Over (Bennett, Earle) - 2:13
  8. Fearless Heart (Earle) - 4:04
  9. Little Rock 'n' Roller (Earle) - 4:49
  10. Down the Road (Brown, Earle, Hinson) - 2:37

reception

In a contemporary review by Spin magazine , the reviewer described the album as a reflection of the Reagan era in the US and noted that Guitar Town was only for listeners looking for diversion, musically very good, but with its critical lyrics "sobering [and] nothing for ardent liberals ”. The online magazine Rocktimes calls the album a "groundbreaking debut". Mark Deming of Allmusic calls the track “Someday” the “perhaps best Bruce Springsteen song that 'the Boss' [note: Springsteen's nickname] didn't write” and considers the album to be “perhaps one of the strongest and most convincing debut albums 1980s country music ”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sources for chart placements: US , accessed on March 7, 2010.
  2. ↑ 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Steve Earle, 'Guitar Town'. In: Rolling Stone Magazine. May 25, 2012, accessed April 15, 2014 .
  3. ^ Certifications for Steve Earle: Guitar Town. RIAA Gold & Platinum Database, accessed March 7, 2010 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Mark Schone: Drugstore Cowboy . In: Spin Magazine . May 1995, p. 59 .
  5. ↑ Kathleen Hudson: Telling Stories, Writing Songs: An Album of Texas Songwriters . University of Texas Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-292-73136-3 , pp. 48 .
  6. ↑ Chris Morris: Steve Earle Straddles Rock, Country . In: Billboard Magazine . August 23, 1986, p. 43 .
  7. ↑ Chris Carroll: Steve Earle: Guitar Town . In: Spin Magazine . September 1986, p. 28 .
  8. ^ Manni Hüther: Steve Earle: Guitar Town. Rocktimes.de, April 10, 2002, accessed March 8, 2010 .