56 Facts About Steve Earle

1.

Stephen Fain Earle is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, author, and actor.

2.

Steve Earle began his career as a songwriter in Nashville and released his first EP in 1982.

3.

Since then Steve Earle has released 20 more studio albums and received three Grammy awards each for Best Contemporary Folk Album; he has four additional nominations in the same category.

4.

Steve Earle's songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Levon Helm, The Highwaymen, Travis Tritt, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, Shawn Colvin, Bob Seger, Percy Sledge, and Emmylou Harris.

5.

Steve Earle has appeared in film and television, most notably as recurring characters in HBO's critically acclaimed shows The Wire and Treme.

6.

Steve Earle has written a novel, a play, and a book of short stories.

7.

Steve Earle is the father of the late singer-songwriter Justin Townes Steve Earle whom he often collaborated with.

8.

Steve Earle was born in Fort Monroe, Virginia, where his father was stationed as an air traffic controller.

9.

Steve Earle began learning the guitar at the age of 11 and entered a school talent contest at age 13.

10.

Steve Earle ran away from home at age 14 to search for his idol, singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

11.

Steve Earle was "rebellious" as a young man and dropped out of school at the age of 16.

12.

Steve Earle moved to Houston with his 19-year-old uncle, a musician.

13.

Steve Earle noted that when he was a young man, his girlfriend was able to get an abortion despite the fact that abortion was illegal.

14.

Steve Earle's father was a doctor at the local hospital in San Antonio while several other girls he knew at the time were not able to get abortions; they lacked access to those with the necessary power to arrange an abortion, which he credits as the origin of his pro-choice views.

15.

In 1974, at the age of 19 Steve Earle moved to Nashville and began working blue-collar jobs during the day and playing music at night.

16.

Steve Earle appeared in the 1976 film Heartworn Highways, a documentary on the Nashville music scene which included David Allan Coe, Guy Clark, Townes van Zandt, and Rodney Crowell.

17.

Steve Earle lived in Nashville for several years and assumed the position of staff songwriter at the publishing company Sunbury Dunbar.

18.

Later Steve Earle grew tired of Nashville and returned to Texas where he started a band called The Dukes.

19.

Later Dea and Carter created an independent record label called LSI and invited Steve Earle to begin recording his own material on their label.

20.

In 1983, Steve Earle signed a record deal with CBS and recorded a "neo-rockabilly album".

21.

Steve Earle released his first full-length album, Guitar Town, on MCA Records in 1986.

22.

Steve Earle released Copperhead Road on Uni Records in 1988 which was characterized as "a quixotic project that mixed a lyrical folk tradition with hard rock and eclectic Irish influences such as The Pogues, who guested on the record".

23.

In light of Steve Earle's "increasing drug use", MCA Records did not renew his contract and Steve Earle didn't record any music for the next four years.

24.

In 1996, Steve Earle formed his own record label, E-Squared Records, and released the album I Feel Alright, which combined the musical sounds of country, rock and rockabilly.

25.

Steve Earle released the album El Corazon in 1997 which one reviewer called "the capstone of this [Steve Earle's] remarkable comeback".

26.

Steve Earle made a foray into bluegrass influenced music in 1999 when he released the album The Mountain with the Del McCoury Band.

27.

In 2000, Steve Earle recorded his album Transcendental Blues, which features the song "Galway Girl".

28.

Steve Earle presented excerpts of his poetry and fiction writing at the 2000 New Yorker Festival.

29.

Steve Earle wrote and produced an off-Broadway play about the death of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman executed since the death penalty was reinstated in Texas.

30.

Steve Earle responded by appearing on a variety of news and editorial programs and defended the song and his views on patriotism and terrorism.

31.

In 2004, Earle released the album The Revolution Starts Now, a collection of songs influenced by the Iraq War and the policies of the George W Bush administration and won a Grammy for best contemporary folk album.

32.

That year Steve Earle was the subject of a documentary DVD called Just an American Boy.

33.

In 2006, Steve Earle contributed a cover of Randy Newman's song "Rednecks" to the tribute album Sail Away: The Songs of Randy Newman.

34.

Steve Earle hosted a radio show on Air America from August 2004 until June 2007.

35.

In September 2007, Steve Earle released his twelfth studio album, Washington Square Serenade, on New West Records.

36.

Steve Earle recorded the album after relocating to New York City, and was his first use of digital audio recording.

37.

In 2008, Steve Earle produced Joan Baez's album Day After Tomorrow.

38.

On May 12,2009, Steve Earle released a tribute album, Townes, on New West Records.

39.

In 2010, Steve Earle was awarded the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's Shining Star of Abolition award.

40.

Steve Earle has recorded two other anti-death penalty songs: "Billy Austin", and "Ellis Unit One" for the 1995 film Dead Man Walking.

41.

Steve Earle released his first novel and fourteenth studio album, both titled I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive after a Hank Williams song, in the spring of 2011.

42.

On February 17,2015, Steve Earle released his sixteenth studio album, Terraplane.

43.

On June 10,2016, Steve Earle released an album of duets with Shawn Colvin, titled simply Colvin And Steve Earle, which was accompanied by a tour in London and the US.

44.

Steve Earle was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

45.

In June 2021 Steve Earle joined Willie Nile on Nile's new song "Blood on Your Hands" to be featured on Nile's upcoming album The Day the Earth Stood Still.

46.

Steve Earle has been married seven times, including twice to the same woman.

47.

Steve Earle married Sandra "Sandy" Henderson in Houston at the age of 18, but left her to move to Nashville a year later where he met and married his second wife, Cynthia Dunn.

48.

Steve Earle married his third wife, Carol-Ann Hunter, who is the mother of their late son, singer-songwriter Justin Townes Steve Earle.

49.

Steve Earle then married Lou-Anne Gill a second time, and finally, in 2005, he married singer-songwriter Allison Moorer with whom he had a third son, John Henry Earle, in April 2010.

50.

In March 2014, Steve Earle announced that he and Moorer had separated.

51.

In 1993, Steve Earle was arrested for possession of heroin and in 1994, for cocaine and weapons possession.

52.

Steve Earle was released from jail after serving 60 days of his sentence.

53.

Steve Earle then completed an outpatient drug treatment program at the Cedarwood Center in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

54.

Steve Earle is outspoken with his political views, and often addresses them in his lyrics and in interviews.

55.

Steve Earle is a vocal opponent of capital punishment, which he considers his primary area of political activism.

56.

Steve Earle is pro-choice and has argued that rich Americans have always had access to abortions; he says the political issue in the US is really whether poor women should have access.