Steve Earle with Rosanne Reid (Support) Queen's Hall Edinburgh 11th June 2023 Review
Rosanne Reid photo credit: Dawn Brankin
Steve Earle is currently on tour and was at the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh tonight playing to a pretty much sold out venue as fans of his songs over the years were obviously not missing the chance to catch up with the man and his music.
Opening what was close to a 2 hour set (with encore) with a cover of The Pogues’ “If I Should Fall From Grace With God”, Steve Earle moved swiftly onto “The Devil’s Right Hand” and then straight into “My Old Friend The Blues”. The opening three songs pretty much set the pace of music to come for the whole evening as Steve continued to move swiftly from one song to another with only short moments of talk all night. When he did talk though, it was more often on important matters rather than just idle chatter to the audience.
I have to admit early in this review that, although I have been aware of Steve Earle and his music for a long time (late 1980s), I have never really listened to any of his music at more than a superficial level as my own musical tastes were often in other directions. Tonight then was really a chance for me to start to explore in more detail just who Steve Earle is and what his songs are about. This was probably the perfect show to do all of this, as Steve Earle was on his own performing a stripped back but very effective set that was covering music from his early days as a recording artist right up until very recent work and along the way songs of many genres, country, folk, bluegrass, blues, political protest, spiritual and some covers by other songwriters with work close to Steve’s heart were on the set list. For Steve Earle fans this was probably a perfect show for them, and many people in the audience knew so many of these songs so well as “Guitar Town”, “Copperhead Road”, “Billy Austin”, “I Aint Ever Satisfied”, “Transendental Blues” and many more were obviously just what people wanted to hear this evening. For me, one of the song highlights of the evening was a full of emotion cover of the Jerry Jeff Walker classic “Mr Bojangles”.
The global impact of Covid brought a swift and unwanted halt to so many things and one of those was a theatrical work with Steve’s music telling the story of one of America’s deadliest mining disasters of the last 50 years when on April 5, 2010 at about 3:30 in the afternoon there was an explosion fuelled by methane and coal dust which tore through the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia and killed 29 miners. It would be good to see this work return to theatres and this story reach the far wider audience that it deserves.
Tonight I discovered not only a very special songwriter, but someone who is inseparable from his music and in many ways these songs are extensions of his own self and often reflect both his own personality and political beliefs. Steve Earle, as he himself was quick to point out this evening, has had more than a few twists and turns in his life, good times, bad times and everything in between (like everyone else) and he is not pretending to be one of life’s saints, what you see is what you get, for better or worse.
What perhaps makes Steve Earle’s music so powerful is that often his life has been at the extreme ends of emotional highs and lows and he is hiding nothing from us, and these songs often reflect that. Steve Earle is quick to admit that he is a recovering heroin addict and his belief that no one and no situation is ever a lost cause is there in his music too. There is pain too in these songs, but nothing could have prepared Steve Earle for somehow finding ways to cope with the death of his first born child, singer songwriter Justin Townes Earle on August 20, 2020, at the age of 38, from an accidental overdose of fentanyl-laced cocaine, and a very personal message from Steve to everyone out there to “be careful” was the most powerful message of this show.
Supporting Steve Earle was Scottish singer songwriter (from Dundee) Rosanne Reid, and in a short 30 minute opening set it was easy to see why she is on this tour, as her music fits in so easily with Steve Earle’s.
Rosanne Reid is the daughter of Craig Reid of the Proclaimers, and although you can hear strands of this musical heritage in her songs, there is obviously a far wider source of inspiration here as songs performed tonight had flavours of classic country, folk and a little gospel in them too.
Steve Earle and Rosanne Reid first met when she attended one of his songwriting workshops, and that respect for each other’s work is obvious, but Rosanne is very much also following her own musical path which was often reflected in “songs from the heart” tonight.
Rosanne Reid has a new album out (her second), “Lawside” so some of this short set list was from here, including “All I Need” and “Call It Love”. Also here, “Passing Through” from the “Horticulture EP”.
Although the album has other musicians on it to give more depth and colour to the songs, this basic solo set was a chance to see clearly the structure of the songs themselves and there was nothing to detract from some carefully crafted lyrics and a guitar playing style that looked deceptively simple, but was actually very economical in its use of chords and fingerstyle playing; less is often more when it comes to music and this style suited these songs well. Clearly Rosanne understands that a song does not need to be musically cluttered and to give it space to let it breathe.
If I had to pick a favourite it would be “I Love Her So”, a song that construction-wise so reminds me of all of those classics from the late 1950s. You can never go wrong in a song using these basic building blocks.
Rosanne Reid is at the early stages of her professional musical career, and it is going to be interesting to see what music is still there waiting to be shared with us all over the coming years.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Opening what was close to a 2 hour set (with encore) with a cover of The Pogues’ “If I Should Fall From Grace With God”, Steve Earle moved swiftly onto “The Devil’s Right Hand” and then straight into “My Old Friend The Blues”. The opening three songs pretty much set the pace of music to come for the whole evening as Steve continued to move swiftly from one song to another with only short moments of talk all night. When he did talk though, it was more often on important matters rather than just idle chatter to the audience.
I have to admit early in this review that, although I have been aware of Steve Earle and his music for a long time (late 1980s), I have never really listened to any of his music at more than a superficial level as my own musical tastes were often in other directions. Tonight then was really a chance for me to start to explore in more detail just who Steve Earle is and what his songs are about. This was probably the perfect show to do all of this, as Steve Earle was on his own performing a stripped back but very effective set that was covering music from his early days as a recording artist right up until very recent work and along the way songs of many genres, country, folk, bluegrass, blues, political protest, spiritual and some covers by other songwriters with work close to Steve’s heart were on the set list. For Steve Earle fans this was probably a perfect show for them, and many people in the audience knew so many of these songs so well as “Guitar Town”, “Copperhead Road”, “Billy Austin”, “I Aint Ever Satisfied”, “Transendental Blues” and many more were obviously just what people wanted to hear this evening. For me, one of the song highlights of the evening was a full of emotion cover of the Jerry Jeff Walker classic “Mr Bojangles”.
The global impact of Covid brought a swift and unwanted halt to so many things and one of those was a theatrical work with Steve’s music telling the story of one of America’s deadliest mining disasters of the last 50 years when on April 5, 2010 at about 3:30 in the afternoon there was an explosion fuelled by methane and coal dust which tore through the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia and killed 29 miners. It would be good to see this work return to theatres and this story reach the far wider audience that it deserves.
Tonight I discovered not only a very special songwriter, but someone who is inseparable from his music and in many ways these songs are extensions of his own self and often reflect both his own personality and political beliefs. Steve Earle, as he himself was quick to point out this evening, has had more than a few twists and turns in his life, good times, bad times and everything in between (like everyone else) and he is not pretending to be one of life’s saints, what you see is what you get, for better or worse.
What perhaps makes Steve Earle’s music so powerful is that often his life has been at the extreme ends of emotional highs and lows and he is hiding nothing from us, and these songs often reflect that. Steve Earle is quick to admit that he is a recovering heroin addict and his belief that no one and no situation is ever a lost cause is there in his music too. There is pain too in these songs, but nothing could have prepared Steve Earle for somehow finding ways to cope with the death of his first born child, singer songwriter Justin Townes Earle on August 20, 2020, at the age of 38, from an accidental overdose of fentanyl-laced cocaine, and a very personal message from Steve to everyone out there to “be careful” was the most powerful message of this show.
Supporting Steve Earle was Scottish singer songwriter (from Dundee) Rosanne Reid, and in a short 30 minute opening set it was easy to see why she is on this tour, as her music fits in so easily with Steve Earle’s.
Rosanne Reid is the daughter of Craig Reid of the Proclaimers, and although you can hear strands of this musical heritage in her songs, there is obviously a far wider source of inspiration here as songs performed tonight had flavours of classic country, folk and a little gospel in them too.
Steve Earle and Rosanne Reid first met when she attended one of his songwriting workshops, and that respect for each other’s work is obvious, but Rosanne is very much also following her own musical path which was often reflected in “songs from the heart” tonight.
Rosanne Reid has a new album out (her second), “Lawside” so some of this short set list was from here, including “All I Need” and “Call It Love”. Also here, “Passing Through” from the “Horticulture EP”.
Although the album has other musicians on it to give more depth and colour to the songs, this basic solo set was a chance to see clearly the structure of the songs themselves and there was nothing to detract from some carefully crafted lyrics and a guitar playing style that looked deceptively simple, but was actually very economical in its use of chords and fingerstyle playing; less is often more when it comes to music and this style suited these songs well. Clearly Rosanne understands that a song does not need to be musically cluttered and to give it space to let it breathe.
If I had to pick a favourite it would be “I Love Her So”, a song that construction-wise so reminds me of all of those classics from the late 1950s. You can never go wrong in a song using these basic building blocks.
Rosanne Reid is at the early stages of her professional musical career, and it is going to be interesting to see what music is still there waiting to be shared with us all over the coming years.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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