Steve Earle is a founding father of the Americana music scene and one of the finest singer-songwriters who ever lived. But he was just a long-haired, seventeen-year-old San Antonio kid when he first heard “Local Memory,” a deep cut off the album that essentially launched the outlaw country movement, 1973’s Shotgun Willie.
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On this premier episode of season two of One by Willie, Earle talks about “Local Memory,” calling it the song that first taught him that a country lyric could read like literature. From there he goes on to discuss the very real tension between hippies and rednecks when Willie played gigs outside Austin in the early seventies, the irascible charm of Willie’s longtime bassist, Bee Spears, and the wonderfully obscene nickname that Willie has for Steve.
We’ve created an Apple Music playlist for this series that we’ll add to with each episode we publish. And as always, if you like the show, please subscribe and drop us a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
