When is a Musician, or Anyone Else, a Hero? Steve Earle and How and When to Separate the Achievement from the Achiever

The adulation and worship of famous people has always been problematic.  Examples of athletes, artists, politicians, and others who excelled at their craft but were dreadful humans long predate the so-called “modern” era (emperors, kings, popes are easy targets, but there are more—can you name a few?  Please share!).  That being said, however, the phenomenon does seem to be exaggerated more by the mass media and marketing machine that drives so much of our culture, especially because that machine is so often directed at young people—from the 8 year old 3^rd graders in my class up through high school and college kids working through various phases of idealism before arriving at varying degrees and flavors of jaded wisdom about the people in the world at adulthood.  And the phenomenon doesn’t really end then, either: now at 50 (*%*W@#*!!!), I still struggle with how to interpret achievements in relation to their achievers when an achievement— most often musical, occasionally literary, cinematic, political, baseball related, or otherwise— really strikes a chord in me.  Does the fact that someone has made a great record make them a hero?  If I conclude that someone is a jerk, how should that impact how I respond to their work and how I respond to their presence in our culture?  What of use can I take from any knowledge I have of how they came to excel at their craft? Are any of these people really heroes?  And what is a hero anyway?

Let me begin to answer these questions with a statement: Steve Earle is a hero.

In support of this statement, I offer my own crude and informally gathered (from sources—interviews, film / video, record sleeves, magazine articles, etc etc etc etc— too myriad to recall and enumerate over the last 18 years or so) summary and interpretation of his biography (and my sincerest apologies to my hero for any factual errors or other offenses I commit in the process of offering this up): 

Steve Earle grew up in Texas absorbing as much of the Great American Musical River as he could while cultivating a fiercely independent personality streak which resulted various kinds of turbulence and (mis)adventures growing up.  He made his way to Nashville as soon as he could, to enter the songwriting clique in which his idol Townes Van Zandt was a Player.  By the age of 19 he was rubbing elbows and writing songs there in Music City with Van Zandt and some of the other heaviest country songwriting hitters of the day—Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, et.al.  A few of his songs were recorded by other artists (most notably Carl Perkins), and eventually he wound up with a recording contract of his own, with 1986’s Guitar Town the first in a string of records (including Exit 0, Copperhead Road, and The Hard Way) which set off a meteoric rise to country-rock fame and fortune.  The records are impressive in many ways—brilliant, vivid narrative songwriting tales featuring identifiable characters in a wide variety of familiar and moving dire straits, performed on a gritty guitar-bass-drums-piano palette devoid of the cheesy electronic sounds that poisoned almost all records of the era, executed by a tight, dynamic, fiery band (The Dukes), and supported by relentless, impassioned touring.  Earle’s own story, however, was classically, predictably tragic: suddenly rich and famous, he became a dope fiend fuckup.  His addiction to hard drugs led him to not only chemical-abuse excess but a life of street crime to support his habits, and all of this while he had a young son growing up, often in his house.  His life came crashing down around him with a drug and weapons bust that came a hairsbreadth from a much more serious charge and tragedy: as he narrates the event, while in the process of being arrested, a loaded pistol was dislodged from his belt, falling to the ground, discharging, and narrowly missing officers in on the arrest.  Despite his achievements—a string of phenomenal and successful records—this guy was not a hero.

He spent 60 days in jail, then completed an inpatient drug rehab program, followed by one of the most remarkable creative and personal rebirths in history.  Immediately following his discharge, he entered the studio to record an acoustic record—mostly of songs salvaged from his early days in Nashville—which is, in my humble opinion, the finest acoustic rock and roll record ever, bar none (Train A Comin’).  This was followed by a set of records which included 3 straight-up rock and roll albums with a reconstituted Dukes (I Feel Alright, El Corazon— I’m happy with this one and nothing else on a desert island— and Transcendental Blues).  I first saw Steve Earle live on the El Corazon tour, and the show was the most moving performance I have ever seen: a man desperately grateful for the second chance he had been given and determined to make the most of it.  He closed his 3^rd encore—at the end of nearly 3 straight hours—with a cover of my favorite song in the whole world: the Stones’ “Sweet Virginia” (his intro: “Thank you Chicago—I love any town where I can sell records and get good Mexican food, and this is the last song tonight because the tacos are on the bus.  I got me a habit of collecting British hillbilly songs, and this is one of ‘em.  Hope you like. G’night”).  He led the tune on mandolin, an instrument which I had just taken up meself.  I thought my head was going to explode— I leaned over and said to my wife and my closest friend who were with me: “Lord take me now.  Everything else will be downhill from here.”  Also woven into this creative nuclear burst was an album of bluegrass originals done with the legendary Del McCoury Band (The Mountain), followed by a searing post-9/11 political record (Jerusalem).  The songs on Jerusalem — most famously "John Walker's Blues," but really the whole damn album— implore a post-9/11 America convulsed with jingoism and xenophobia to move beyond its loathing and fear and face hard truths about itself.  For this he was castigated by persons of all stripes in American life, including no less a figure than the elder George Bush, to which he said, essentially, "Say what you want.  I have the strength of my convictions and I'm on a mission to try to make people think differently."   He has been politically outspoken and effective since his release from prison / rehab on other fronts, as well: as a fierce opponent of the death penalty he has not only written songs about the issue, but worked closely with political leaders on several fronts to achieve substantive change.  Now clean for about 20 years, he is raising a son with autism, and is active in advocating for people and families facing challenges related to autism. He has written novels and plays, appeared in televisions and films, taught classes in songwriting (here at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music!), and subsequent albums (The Revolution Starts Now, Washington Square Serenade, et.al.) have been critical and commercial successes.  He works relentlessly at his craft, has fallen as far as one can fall without dying as a result of personal mistakes, learned from his grave failure, turned himself around, and now leads a life not only of high creative achievement, but of conviction and dedication to improving the lives of others and the world in general.

In this biography, we see not only achievements to be enjoyed and celebrated (some of the greatest rock and roll albums ever, creative success in many artistic media), but also heroism: a willingness to work ferociously hard not only to achieve, but also to improve as a person and to improve the world as well.

A great album is a great album, period: John Lennon’s Imagine, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, etc etc etc.  Achievement is achievement: Tiger Woods mile-long list of golf championships, John F. Kennedy’s management of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Picasso’s Guernica.  These achievements are worthy of adulation.  And the people who did these things did so because they were singularly devoted to, driven by, and disciplined in their work.  This kind of dedication is also worthy of celebration: nothing great is achieved without this kind of hard work, an instructive lesson to everyone. But, like so many people who achieve fame and fortune, these people were and are also famously difficult, unkind, disrespectful, or even abusive to the people around them—unrecovered addicts, adulterers, and tyrants whose personal foibles hurt many of the people around them terribly.  Most of us are flawed in similar ways (myself included for sure!), and so my position is NOT that these people should be reviled or castigated for their flaws, but merely viewed as human, rather than heroic.  When I see kids saying that their idols are famous athletes or musicians, and that they want to be like them when they grow up, I try to remind kids (and myself) that I don’t really know these famous people or know enough about them to know if I want to be like them, that we should all enjoy their work, but reserve judgment about them as people unless we really know more about their lives.

Rare is the person who can achieve greatness and also conduct themselves personally in a way which is exemplary and worthy of celebration.  Steve Earle’s biography helps me understand the difference and separate a person’s work from their life.  I enjoy Dark Side of the Moon no less because I have concluded that Roger Waters isn’t a hero, but I particularly appreciate the likes of the Steve Earle’s of the world when they come ‘round.