Steve Earle: Copperhead Road : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

All dressed up in his outlaw-biker best, Steve Earle launched a political fireball with 1988's Copperhead Road. On the Skynyrd-style boogie of "Snake Oil," he raged against Reagan: "Well, ain't your president good to you? Knocked 'em dead in Libya, Grenada too." And he advocates for gun control on "The Devil's Right Hand," punctuating his message with big drums and ringing acoustic guitars. But Earle undermined that song's credibility a few years later when his own handgun accidentally went off while he was being arrested on drug charges.

Copperhead Road was the last good album Earle recorded before heroin sent him spiraling out of control in the early Nineties — that's what makes it one of his more compelling releases, if not exactly his best. Tony Brown's bright heartland-rock production provides a stark contrast to Earle's gritty lyrics: From the Celtic dalliances in the Pogues duet "Johnny Come Lately" to the sweet melancholy of "Even When I'm Blue," the rugged ache comes through. This deluxe edition includes live material from a 1987 show in North Carolina and a 1989 set in Calgary. Earle's voice has a junkie's gruff, blown-out quality, but his passionate solo-acoustic delivery of Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" is sublime. It shows why Earle was able to hit rock bottom and still go on to become one of the most important topical singer-songwriters of his generation: The man believes in redemption.