Consumer Guide Album

Steve Earle: Early Tracks [Epic, 1987]
Though they're nowhere near as lame as the artist claims (what do artists know? and why should they tell us about it?), these occasionally surprising studies in neotraditionalist rockabilly do lack that crucial aura of authority--the walking bass sounds more committed than the callow abandon when it should be the other way round. Still, side one won't disillusion, and two strokes shouldn't get lost on the B: the supernal male narcissism of "My Baby Worships Me," and "Devil's Right Hand," a ban-handguns parable you'd swear is as old as the Louvin Brothers. B