Justin Townes Earle will lead Woody Guthrie centennial tribute at Pace on October 26-27 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
PACE PRESENTS
Pace University, Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts
3 Spruce St.
October 26-27, $25-$50, 7:30
www.pace.edu
www.justintownesearle.com
Since his 2008 debut record, The Good Life, Nashville-born singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle has been wearing his heavy heart — and his diverse influences — on his long sleeves. Melding his own American roots-rock blend of folk, rock, jazz, pop, and blues, Earle doesn’t hide that he is the son of Steve Earle and was named for his father’s mentor, Townes Van Zandt. “I hear my father on the radio / Singin’ ‘Take Me Home Again’ / Three hundred miles from the Carolina coast and I’m / I’m skin and bones again / Sometimes I wish that I could get away / Sometimes I wish that he’d just call,” Earle sings on “Am I That Lonely Tonight?,” the opening track of his most recent album, Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now (Bloodshot, March 2012). The follow-up to 2010’s Harlem River Blues and 2009’s Midnight at the Movies, the younger Earle’s latest is an exploration of love and loneliness seen through the eyes of a man still searching for his place in the world. “So, please, baby, just drive / Carry me out into the night / Carry me out into the night / ’Cause I need to know / That there’s something more to this life / That there’s something more to this moment,” he pleads on “Passin’ Through Memphis in the Rain.” Among Earle’s other influences are Bruce Springsteen, Kris Kristofferson, Randy Newman, and Woody Guthrie. On October 26 & 27, Earle will be at Pace’s Michael Schimmel Center honoring that last influence for the special program “In the Spirit of Woody Guthrie,” being held in conjunction with the centennial of Woodrow Wilson Guthrie’s birth. Earle will host two nights of music and stories featuring original songs and covers, with Earle and his specially chosen guests, which include Deer Tick’s John McCauley, the Low Anthem, Joe Pug, and bestselling author and columnist Joe Klein.