Steve Earle
Friday, Jan. 21, Orange Peel

Can I have it back?

My Top 10 list that is. I need to add one. When I chose my Ten Favorite Albums of 2004 back in December, I had not yet heard Steve Earle’s The Revolution Starts . . . Now. I need to squeeze it in there somewhere. Is there room in the Top 5? How about 2 1/2? Sigh. I should have listened to Malcolm Holcombe. He had it Number One.

Those who bother to read the album title will not be surprised to find that The Revolution Starts . . . Now is an intensely political album, and those familiar with Steve Earle will not be surprised to find that its sympathies lie decidedly to the left. When Earle rushed the album into the market last year, he hoped it would add a few drumbeats to the chorus of those calling for George Bush’s defeat.

“The most important presidential election of our lifetime was less than seven months away,” Earle wrote in his liner notes, “and we desperately wanted to weigh in, both as artists and as citizens of a democracy. All but two of these songs were recorded within 24 hours of the first line hitting the paper. We worked 12- and 14-hour days and in between takes and over meals we talked about the war, the election, baseball, and women, in precisely that order . . . Maybe I am getting old.”

Steve Earle did not get his electoral wish, but he does have another great album to his name. It is self-conscious and explicit, filled with songs that are brazen and angry even by Earle’s standards. The title track calls for revolution “in your own backyard/ in your own hometown,” and asks us what we’re waiting for. The incendiary “F the CC” is a not-suitable-for-airplay track that finds Earle F-in not just the FCC, but the FBI and CIA as well. Then there’s the loping love ditty “Condi, Condi,” in which Earle, tongue planted firmly in cheek, pitches woo at our next Secretary of State:

Sweet and dandy pretty as can be

You be the flower and I’ll be the bumble bee

Oh she loves me oops she loves me not

People say you’re cold but I think you’re hot

Oh, Condi, Condi

Oh, Condi, Condi

These are all good songs, but none too delicate. After only a few listens, it becomes evident that the stronger songs are the subtler ones (no surprise there). “Home to Houston” is the ballad of a truck driver in the Iraqi reconstruction who wants nothing so much as a ticket home. “Rich Man’s War” tells the tale of three poor boys — two American, one Iraqi — who find themselves wrapped up in bigger battles than they ever meant to fight. And lo and behold, there’s even a love song tucked in at the end, a broken-hearted seduction number called “I Thought You Should Know.” It may just be the best track on the album.

It is easy to imagine that the right is tired of Steve Earle. He’s a gadfly and a rabble-rouser, a troubadour with a checkered past who is quick to share his views on politics, the death penalty, and the war in Iraq. It is just as easy to see why he is a hero to many on the left. In an age when so-called liberal “leaders” take great pains to distance themselves from their party’s progressive past (and, one senses, from their own ideals), Earle comes across as someone who speaks with courage and conviction. That’s the advantage that artists hold over politicians: they can speak their minds without fear of losing their jobs. On The Revolution Starts . . . Now, Steve Earle does just that, with a set of songs that are musically rich and politically profound. The revolution may well be postponed, but when it comes, Steve Earle will be ready and waiting, guitar in hand.

Tickets are $20 in advance and $22 at the door, and the show starts at 9 p.m. Opening is Allison Moorer, the Alabama country-soul songstress whose voice sends shivers down my spine. Don’t be late. Call 828.225.5851 for more info.

Marcus Roberts
Friday, Jan. 21, UNCA

Man oh man, I ran out of room, so I gave my other column to Marcus this week. Look to your left, fair pilgrims.

Marcus Roberts plays UNCA’s Lipinsky Auditorium Friday night. Tickets are $18 for the general public, $15 for UNCA staff and the WCU community, and $6 for UNCA students. The show starts at 8 pm. Call 828.232.5000 for more info. If you’re booked on Friday, the Marcus Roberts Trio play Appalachian State Saturday night.

Also Playing in Asheville

• Sam Bush, Orange Peel, 1/20

• Menage, Jack of the Wood, 1/21

• Dubconscious, Emerald Lounge, 1/21

• Zoso, Orange Peel, 1/22

• Fred Eaglesmith, Grey Eagle, 1/22

• Soapbox, Westville Pub, 1/22

• Orange Krush, Tressa’s, 1/22

Three Good Piano Men

1. Earl Hines

2. Fats Waller

3. Memphis Slim

They Said It

“We have a fundamentalist who thinks he can wage a war on fundamentalism and win. That will cost us our children and our grandchildren. Mark my words.”

— Steve F. Earle on George W. Bush, as quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette