The only surprising thing about Earle making a blues album - given he's done rock, country, folk and bluegrass - is that it took him so long.
As a Texan where the tough electric players and Lightnin' Hopkins' back porch acoustic style came from, blues was certainly in his blood. And these songs - many written while backpacking around Europe by himself, presumably after the break-up of his most recent marriage - are within the broad landscape of blues.
Watch Steve Earle and the Dukes perform You're the Best Lover That I Ever Had:
You could imagine Ol' Lightnin' doing You're the Best Lover That I Ever Had, and the brooding, raw electric Tennessee Kid here conjures up Dylan, Beat poets and the spook-spirit of Robert Johnson - who wrote Terraplane Blues - as Earle sings of one who makes a pact with the devil.
