Steve Earle's 'Guitar Town,' 'The Hard Way' & More Albums Remastered for Vinyl Release

Steve Earle's four MCA Records studio albums, Guitar Town, Exit 0, Copperhead Road, and The Hard Way, have been remastered from the original tapes by Robert Vosgien and cut for vinyl by Ron McMaster at Capitol Mastering for LP release on May 6.

Celebrating its 30 th anniversary this year, 1986's Guitar Town was Steve Earle's album debut, which propelled him into the charts and across the airwaves. The album hit No. 1 on Billboard's Country Albums chart and garnered two GRAMMY Award nominations for Earle: Best Male Country Vocalist and Best Country Song for the album's title track, which reached No. 7 on Billboard's Country Singles chart. Certified Platinum in Canada and Gold in the U.S., Guitar Town also features "Goodbye's All We Got Left," which peaked at No. 8 on the Country Singles chart, as well as "Hillbilly Highway" and Someday."

"Guitar Town was his first shot at showing a major audience what he could do, and he hit a bull's-eye it's perhaps the strongest and most confident debut album any country act released in the 1980s." AllMusic.com

Released in 1987, Earle's follow-up album, Exit 0, was recorded with his touring band, The Dukes. The album hit the Top 20 of Billboard's Country Albums chart and earned Earle two more GRAMMY nominations: Best Male Country Vocal Performance for the album and Best Country Song for "Nowhere Road." Another single from the album, "I Ain't Ever Satisfied," made the Top 25 of Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart.

Copperhead Road followed in 1988, achieving what Earle has described as a blend of heavy metal and bluegrass, and what Rolling Stone dubbed "power twang." The album's guest artists include The Pogues on "Johnny Come Lately," Strength In Numbers' Sam Bush (mandolin), Jerry Douglas (dobro), Mark O'Connor (violin), and Edgar Meyer (bass violin) on "Nothing But A Child," Bill Lloyd of Foster & Lloyd on acoustic guitar, and guest vocalists including singer/songwriter Maria McKee and John Cowan of New Grass Revival. Time magazine praised Copperhead Road, saying Earle "takes long chances with big themes...and does them proud." The album peaked at No. 7 on Billboard's Country Albums chart, and went triple-Platinum in Canada and Gold in the U.S.

Earle was again joined by The Dukes for 1990's The Hard Way, the last album he released before a "hiatus" that stretched into four troubled years away from the studio and the stage. The aptly-titled album was recorded in Nashville as Earle was struggling with severe drug addiction. Earle later told an interviewer, "I defend The Hard Way to the death, because I almost died in the process of making it." In 2015, the album's "When The People Find Out" was used as the end credits music for the HBO miniseries, "Show Me a Hero," written by David Simon and William F. Zorzi and directed by Paul Haggis.

An expanded 30th Anniversary Edition of Guitar Town will be released this fall in 2CD and digital audio packages. Details will be announced.

steveearle.com

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