![]() We were forging new territory based on ignorance, basically.” None of these guys were ‘Nashville,’ and I wasn’t considered ‘Nashville,’ either,” “None of us knew a whole lot about country music. Richard Bennett had been Neil Diamond’s guitar player. “John Jarvis had moved from L.A., too, and he was kind of the hip new keyboard player. to Nashville and he had been getting a lot of work as a background singer and as a drummer,” says Ainlay, who had moved to Music City from Indiana to attend Belmont University in 1975. ![]() The group that assembled to work with Earle included Bowen, Gordy, Bennett, Ainlay, pedal steel player Bucky Baxter, organist/keyboardist Ken Moore, drummer/vocalist Harry Stinson, and piano/synth player John Jarvis. With Bowen’s demands satisfied, the project moved into Back Stage Studio within the Sound Stage Studios facility. I didn’t know what Steve would say, but he went, ‘Oh, man, I’ve been wanting to get these fixed for a long time!’” I’ll pay for it,’ because Steve had these rotten teeth. Now one more thing: You gotta get his teeth fixed. “The sound of those demos is pretty close to what we recorded on the album,” Brown says, “Steve arranged all the demos with Richard Bennett and laid it out like a sketch of what he wanted the record to sound like. He’s paying for it.’” So, Brown took Earle, a backing band and a young engineer named Chuck Ainlay to the Oak Ridge Boys’ studio in Hendersonville to recut the demos. ![]() “I was scared of what Steve would say when I told him that, but he said, ‘Well, let’s do it. Go cut me some demos where I can understand one word, and maybe I’ll consider it,’” Brown recalls. “I played Bowen the demos of ‘Guitar Town,’ ‘Hillbilly Highway’ and ‘My Old Friend the Blues,’ and he said, ‘I can’t understand a word he’s saying. So, Brown took Earle’s songs to Jimmy Bowen at MCA. But they’re not gonna like it,’” Brown says. “Steve said, ‘I’ve got to go in and play the songs I’ve written. They want me to do this Stray Cats thing.’”īrown tried to convince Earle not to reveal his best songs to the Columbia execs, hoping that the label would decline Earle’s option and Brown could bring him to MCA. So, I heard ‘Guitar Town’ and ‘My Old Friend the Blues,’ and I thought, ‘This guy is the next Waylon.’ I said, ‘Man, these songs are awesome.’ He said, ‘The label’s not gonna like it. “We were down there for four or five days, and Steve was writing all these songs that he was planning to play for Columbia because it was coming to the time when the label would pick up his option or not. “Well, this one day, Noel Fox, who was the head of the publishing company, said to me, ‘I’m taking some writers down to Gulf Shores for the weekend-Jimbeau Hinson and Steve Earle-and if you want to come along you can.’ At the time, he was signed to CBS/Columbia and they were trying to position him as a rockabilly kind of act. Steve Earle was one of the writers there. “But I stayed a writer for Silverline/Goldline Music Publishing. “I had been a keyboard player with the Oak Ridge Boys for a while, and after that I went to work at record companies: RCA first and then MCA,” Brown explains. However, in 1986, Brown’s A&R/production career was just starting to pick up steam. ![]() Today we know Brown as the hitmaking producer of George Strait, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill and others. Guitar Town was co-produced by bassist/arranger Emory Gordy and keyboardist/producer Tony Brown. In this month’s Classic Tracks, we take a look at sessions for the entire album, which included not only the Top 10 title track, but unforgettable hits such as “Hillbilly Highway” and “Goodbye’s All We’ve Got Left,” and heartbreakers like “My Old Friend the Blues” and “Little Rock ’n’ Roller.” With breathtaking songwriting and raw rocking guitar, Steve Earle’s first album for MCA ignited what the artist cleverly called the “Great Credibility Scare of the ’80s,” when brilliant tracks by unconventional singers invaded the charts. ![]()
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