New West Records

Heads up, folks: if the mention of the phrase “country music” is a turn-off for you, you need to get beyond that. (You don’t really get all fussed up and waste time slapping labels on things, do you? I didn’t think so …)

Much of the press surrounding Steve Earle’s new album I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive has referred to it as a “country” album. If you need to put it in a specific slot, I guess you could call it that, but I’d counter by asking, “_which_ country?” I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive indeed has its rootsy moments (nicely delivered by T Bone Burnett’s production work), but the overall vibe is as worldly as we’ve come to expect from Mr. Earle.

The album-opening “Waitin’ On The Sky” establishes the fact that I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive is a T Bone production with its big-as-hell drum sound and sodden-bottomed bass. But the ghost of Doug Sahm is also on hand: by the time the cut’s tremolo guitar and Farfisa-toned keys have their say, you’ll be having “what if” visions of a Burnett-produced Sir Douglas Quintet album that never was.

Earle has always downplayed his abilities on the mandolin – I think it was after a live performance of the then-new “Copperhead Road” that he told David Letterman something like, “They can’t tell you you’re playing it wrong if you wrote the song yourself.” But put an ear to “Little Emperor” and see if you don’t catch yourself flinching at the power of his little mando blasting away, barking and snarling out a goodbye to George W. Bush. The first 40 or so seconds will do it – just Earle picking and singing with Sara Watkin’s fiddle bobbing and weaving in sync with his swings at Dubya. Listen to the pauses in the vocal and you’ll hear Earle growling – yeah: growling – just off the mic while he chunks out the song’s taunting, twisted main riff on the mando. Never one to hold back his feelings, Earle doles out a pure blast of don’t-let-the-screen-door-hit-you-in-the-ass venom with that little eight-stringed beast hammering home the message – beautifully nasty stuff.

Speaking of Sara Watkin: MVP honors are a two-way tie between fiddler Watkin and pedal steel master Greg Leisz. They each turn in some beautiful performances throughout the album; and when they double-team on the Woody Guthrie-flavored sweetness of “I Am A Wanderer”, the results are breathtaking.

There’s Earle as balladeer bandit (the slashing stomp of “Molly-O”); as a man who’s not afraid to talk about love (“Every Part Of Me”) or spirituality (the shimmering “God Is God”); as dweller of the deepest, darkest shadows (the Tom Waitsian “Meet Me In The Alleyway”). With wife Allison Moorer at his side on “Heaven Or Hell”, Earle manages to bundle up a message of helpless love in a wrap of swampiness straight out of Creedence’s “Born On The Bayou”. And Allen Toussaint provides a New Orleans-style horn arrangement on “This City” that perfectly complements Earle’s message of hope.

So don’t get all hung up on that “country” label being applied to I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive – it’s a big country, my friend.