Justin Townes Earle is a singer/songwriter with a new record titled Kids in the Street being released on May 26th. Justin is undeniably good at what he does and he happens to be part of my extended family. Justin is the son of my rather renegade cousin, Steve Earle who is a successful and multiple Grammy winning singer, songwriter, actor as well as author. Justin has taken his inherited talent for putting words and music together to a new level of expertise.

To me personally, Justin’s music resonates with the laid-back sound of Memphis soul music tied with the blues. I have loved folk music since I was very young and I can hear some of those same deeply felt lyrics in Justin’s songs. With this record, Justin is evidently branching out to new sounds and new directions. I am looking forward to hearing the entire record!

From the magazine, Rolling Stone…portions of a recent article about Justin’s new record…

“Justin Townes Earle-despite a name that evokes both father Steve and his dad’s mentor, Townes Van Zandt- has always had a knack for forging a strong and unusual relationship between roots music’s past and its newest arbiters. He made songs about wandering the Lower East Side of Manhattan feel natural against his sledgehammer strums and the beat of an upright bass, and despite his taste for everything that rested outside of country’s borders-Memphis soul, swing, blues and rockabilly-he’d never ventured beyond his native Tennessee to record an album or work with an outside producer.

But Kids in the Street, Earle’s forthcoming record and his first on New West, does just that. At the production helm is Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis, who took Earle to his studio in Omaha, Nebraska, to make the LP and help the singer-songwriter transition even more heavily away from the traditional folk-country arrangements he grew up around. The album’s lead single, “Champagne Corolla”, is a subtle poke at the pastiche of an American musician cruising around their gentrified neighborhood in a vintage truck, when the people who settled there first toiled for something far more working-class. Stacked with horns and a Motown groove, “Champagne Corolla” is a preview of an album that Earle says will not only tackle some recent life changes-marriage, a baby on the way, a sober existence after struggling with addiction-but wrestle with the ghosts of Nashville, both sonically and physically.”    

  -Written by Marissa R. Moss for Rolling Stone-

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