Guitar Town

Steve Earle is as close as Nashville ever came to birthing its own Bruce Springsteen. His debut album reveals a workingman’s poet with a rugged, rebellious demeanour and a rock ’n’ roll heart. Of course, the Texan songsmith had a country soul, too, and when he put the two together on the title cut’s mission statement or the character study “Good Ol’ Boy (Gettin’ Tough)”, he created a thrilling amalgam that was more or less the Big Bang of alt-country.