Video: Steve Earle / Colorado Girl / Letterman

Filed under: News , New Music , Exclusive , Television Ted Barron It's a busy spring for Steve Earle . The country legend is currently filming new episodes of HBO's ' Treme ' in New Orleans and his new T Bone Burnett -produced album, 'I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive,' will be released on April 26. The record shares a title with Earle's debut novel, which is due out May 12 [...]

Artist: Steve Earle Album: Townes Label: New West Image: http://www.popmatters.com/imag es/blog_art/t/townes.jpg Display Width: 200 Townesis arguably the quintessential Americana album. Townes Van Zandt is Americana--not the culture industry's Statuettes of Liberty and Fourth of July parades, but its people, especially its millions of restless outcasts. His songs conjure a culture's icons: forlorn Edward Hopper loners, restless Melvillean vagabonds, and downcast Bukowskian couples. They often cite the geography to which they belong and are fleeing, from Texas...

Ever since he broke onto the scene in mid-1980s with Guitar Town and his brand rockin' country, Steve Earle has always been misunderstood by Nashville, but not by me. To me, he's always been great. On his latest CD, Townes , he honors the man he calls the "best songwriter to ever walk the earth," Townes Van Zandt , with a performance that is as good as it gets. Townes Van Zandt had a cult following, but never actually had a hit on his [...]

It's hard to imagine Steve Earle covering Townes Van Zandt being on any late night music show other than Letterman. Could you really see Jimmy Fallon or Jay Leno having Earle on? Letterman's stage is the only venue for this kind of performance; Earle performs "Colorado Girl" acoustic with no side players. Letterman prefaces the performance with a succinct biography of Van Zandt (he says he was an interesting fellow and led a bit of a tortured life), and ends with an offer for someone to buy Earle's album with a rug thrown in. [...]

Steve Earle performs a rendition of Townes Van Zandt's "Colorado Girl" on the June 3 episode of the Late Show.

• Steve Earle - Colorado Girl (Townes Van Zandt cover on the Late Show with David Letterman 06-03-2009)