Quick-hitters:: Justin Townes Earle

The name says it all. I hate to lead with that, but when you are Steve Earle's kid, named after Townes Van Zandt, well, you have some mighty large shoes to fill along with dealing with too many assumptions. However, despite the pressure, Justin is really approaching his music career in a grass roots fashion as he tries to move past his problems and make his own name in music.

I first heard about him on Songs Illinois (who I never link, even though he's kind of the defacto roots/country blog), but was instantly run over. Justin's new record - The Good Life - has been fighting Mark Kozalek and Justin Rutledge for top spot lately.

Who Am I To Say is full of emotion, introspection and a beautiful acoustic line. Justin is charismatic and the sympathy that seeps out on the track is a nice change of pace from the normal crying in your beer type efforts that dominate this genre. Opening up about his relationship with his Dad on a record is not something you'd expect, but that sincerity (and history) makes this song powerful. He's not perfect and doesn't blame his Dad for how things turned out. Shit goes wrong, but in the end, blood is thicker than water.




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