BIO

A protege of legendary songwriters Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Steve Earle quickly became a master storyteller in his own right, with his songs being recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, The Pretenders and countless others. 1986 saw the release of his record, Guitar Town, which shot to number one on the country charts and is now regarded as a classic of the Americana genre. Most recently, Earle’s 1988 hit “Copperhead Road” was made an official state song of Tennessee in 2023.

Later releases like The Revolution Starts…Now (2004), Washington Square Serenade (2007), and TOWNES (2009) received consecutive GRAMMY^® Awards. Jerry Jeff, released in 2022, consisted of Earle’s versions of songs written by Jerry Jeff Walker, one of his mentors.

Earle has produced albums for other artists as well, such as Joan Baez (Day After Tomorrow) and Lucinda Williams (Car Wheels on A Gravel Road).

He is also an accomplished author and has published both a novel—I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2011)—and a collection of short stories—Dog House Roses (Houghton Mifflin 2003).

As an actor, Earle has appeared in several films and had recurring roles in the HBO series The Wire and Tremé. In 2009, he appeared in the Off-Broadway play Samara, for which he also wrote a score that The New York Times described as “exquisitely subliminal.” Earle also wrote music for and appeared in Coal Country, for which he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. And he is the host of the weekly show Hard Core Troubadour on Sirius Radio’s Outlaw Country channel.

In 2020, Earle was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2023 was honored by the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music. Earle’s latest album, Alone Again (Live), was released in July 2024.