Earle channels his mentor Van Zandt

Recording songs from memory had powerful effect on singer

Don’t call “Townes” a tribute record. That’s the word from Steve Earle, who recorded 15 songs by the legendary Texas singer and songwriter and his mentor for his latest release.

“This isn’t what the other records that are called tribute records are. Those are where a bunch of people record somebody’s songs and don’t get paid for it,” Earle said in a recent phone interview. “This is a record of Townes Van Zandt songs. It’s basically me making a record based on Townes’ performances of the songs to the best of my memory.”

Earle first heard Van Zandt as a teenage high school dropout in Texas and met him for the first time in 1972 when Van Zandt heckled Earle during a performance at The Old Quarter in Houston.

Van Zandt, who was about a decade older, befriended and schooled Earle. The pair remained friends until Van Zandt’s death in 1997 at age 52.

Earle wrote “Fort Worth Blues” on the night Van Zandt died and has championed his mentor’s music for decades.

So why did he wait until 2009 to make “Townes”?

“I’ve talked about doing it for a long time and then somebody would fly an airplane into a tall building or the president of the United States would do something stupid and I’d find a record,” Earle said.

o What: Steve Earle, in concert.

o When:8 p.m. Jan. 19-20.

o Where: Aladdin Theater, 3017 S.E. Milwaukie Ave., Portland.

o Cost: $36.50-$38 through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.

o Information: 503-234-9694 or http://aladdin-theater.com.

Earle has been working off and on for years on “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive,” a novel about a heroin-addicted dentist in 1963, who was with Hank Williams when he died a decade earlier. To finish the book, he needed to make writing his full-time job.

So he recorded the tracks for “Townes,” sent the record to his label, New West, and holed up to complete the novel. He plans to turn in the draft of the book just before he gets on the bus later this month to start his “Townes” tour.

Memories and an acoustic guitar

Making “Townes” proved to be a more profound experience than Earle had figured.

First, he had to narrow down the song selection. Just before he started to record, he still had 26 Van Zandt songs on his list — and that excluded the four Van Zandt songs he’d already recorded.

For the basic tracks, Earle grabbed a guitar and sang in his Greenwich Village apartment.

“I basically had the acoustic, except for the four bluegrass songs. I’d close my eyes and do them the way I remembered Townes doing them,” he said. “The rest of the stuff that I put on there is record making.”

The rest of the stuff includes vocals from his wife, Allison Moorer, and son, Justin Townes Earle, who, of course, is named after Van Zandt. It also includes the guitar of Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and the production of Dust Brother John King on the terrifying “Lungs.”

“The experience of doing the music was more powerful than I thought it would be,” Earle said. “It may be the best record I’ve done. It hurts the singer/songwriter in me, no question about that. But they are some of the best songs ever written. So I’ve got that going for me.”

The record opens with “Pancho & Lefty,” by far Van Zandt’s most famous song. It has been recorded by dozens of artists, including Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, who had a No. 1 country hit with it in 1972.

But it also includes some more obscure Van Zandt songs that Earle brings fully to life. That, he said, is in imitation of sorts of Van Zandt, who most people saw late in his life after decades of alcoholism and drug abuse had taken its toll.

“He was a great solo performer in the ’70s when I met him,” Earle said. “He was one of the best solo performers I’ve ever seen. He did most of his touring in the ’90s and his skills were somewhat diminished by then. He was still Townes Van Zandt, but he was an alcoholic and that hurt him.”

Supporting record stores

Earle gave this interview when he was in Los Angeles, during a promotional tour of record stores. He recalled doing just one in-store performance in the previous 20 years.

But with the downturn in the record business and the rapid disappearance of independent record stores, he played seven in a week, down the West Coast to Denver, then Austin, Texas.

“These are the last of the real record stores,” he said. “I download like everybody, but I still like record stores. There’s something about them that can’t be replaced.”

In addition to “Townes” and the novel, Earle is preparing for a big-screen debut.

After getting good notices playing a recovered addict in HBO’s “The Wire” he was cast in Tim Blake Nelson’s “Leaves of Grass,” which was filmed last year in Shreveport, La. It is now in post-production and is slated for release late this year or in early 2010.

“I like the acting things, the insurance is better,” Earle said. “I’m a drug dealer, it’s the opposite of my character on ‘The Wire.’ It actually requires some acting.”