Radio Exile | Justin Townes Earle – Midnight At the Movies Review

Justin Townes Earle – Midnight At the Movies Review

By Dan Berkman - February 10, 2009 | Email the author

Justin Townes Earle [Myspace] has a lot to live up to, not only does he bare the last name of songwriting legend, Steve Earle, but he was also named after yet another: his father’s hero, Townes Van Zandt. Normally, this amount of pressure would cause any artist to falter, especially one so young (he is only 27), but where others fail, Justin succeeds. From the opening chords of his sophomore album, Midnight at the Movies, Justin speaks loudly and confidently in his own voice and oh, what a voice it is.

Midnight At the Movies explores the great wide open landscape of country music. Like the great wild west that country music has seemed to embody, many people are scared or rather ignorant about what lies past the horizon. Justin Earle is not only unafraid of this journey and instead becomes the listener’s guide on a fantastic train ride to this unexplored territory.

There are many fine stops along the way: front porches in Oklahoma (“Dirty Rag”), the stage at the Grand Ole Opry (“What I Mean To You”, “Poor Fool”), honky tonks in Nashville (“Halfway to Jackson”), mining camps(“They Killed John Henry”), and the dream factory of Tin Pin alley (“Walk Out”). Upon a first listen, it seems that Earle merely collected these songs because each one is so true to the style, time and their place. That is until you flip the album over and realize that he wrote each and every one of them save for a version of The Replacements‘ “Can’t Hardly Wait”, which despite getting a country recasting retains all of the drive, longing, wonder and inspiration of the original – it takes ingenuity to substitute a ukulele on Westerberg’s famous guitar line.

Along our journey with Justin we get to know him better as we chat, smoke, and drink a little too much. In his naked “Mama’s Eyes”, Justin deals with his relationship with his estranged father, pondering aloud how they are so different and, yet, chose a similar career path. As we pull into station from which we started, Justin leaves us with one more confessional moment, “Here We Go Again” which is almost solely lead by Justin’s sweet vocals, and serves as a great and satisfying closer.

The trip may have been short but in the course of this half hour journey, we learned a little bit about the history of music, shared the confidence of a young man with lots to say and had a great time. Justin Earle has done a great deal here on Midnight at the Movies and shows a breath of talent and appreciation for music that is hard to match. If this album, doesn’t earn Justin a slot as one of the great songwriters of the modern era, hopefully it at least starts the conversation.

“Mama’s Eyes” [mp3]

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