Justin Townes Earle was born to be a music star. The son of legendary folk singer Steve Earle, and named for celebrated songwriter Townes Van Zandt, the young Earle is an award-winning singer-songwriter in his own right. Born and bred in Nashville, and now residing in New York's East Village, Earle already has three albums under his belt. This past September he won an Americana Music Award for Emerging Artist of the Year.
NRDC is excited to have Justin Townes Earle join the ranks of artists banding together in our Music Saves Mountains initiative to help spread national awareness of mountaintop removal coal mining -- and bring it to an end.
(Justin Townes Earle)
This description of his music nails it:
If you didn't look at the songwriting credits, you'd swear that Earle's songs were penned on the stoop of a one-pump filling station in dust bowl era Oklahoma, the smoke-filled song and dream factories of Tin Pan Alley, or at the back door of Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville. This rising talent effortlessly taps the romanticism imbued in the beaten-soled travelogues and mythos of Woody Guthrie; the lounging around a campfire at a work camp; and the edgy angst of a wintry Minneapolis.
In the past few years Earle has been a busy man, occupying himself with such activities as performing on the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest, Chicago Country Music Festival, Americana Music Awards, Down Home in Norway and his debut on the Grand Ole Opry. He toured non-stop for the past year including pump-priming appearances in the UK, Australia and Scandinavia. Features on NPR’s Morning Edition, Mountain Stage and World Café caught the ears of millions of listeners and admiring ink ran in publications like New York Times, LA Times, Nashville Scene, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, American Songwriter and No Depression.
Fortunately, Earle is not too busy to lend his voice to this important cause.
"The great Woodie Guthrie, one of my musical influences, spoke the essential truth when he sang that this land belongs to you and me. That's true for the Appalachian ," said Earle. "We can't allow coal companies to continue tearing down our mountains and tearing up our American heritage. It's time we stop this purple mountain travesty. I'm happy to be part of that solution."