Harlan Man - Single

Brilliant musical portrait of miners and their communities

     

You might ask why a single was released in 2011 from an album that came out in 1999. Apparently it was a charitable/political release from Steve Earle, intended to raise funds for a cause near and dear to him. Whether you should buy it depends on the size of your personal purse. If you can afford the entire album, "The Mountain," get it immediately. It is magnificent, with both Earle and the Del McCoury Band at their absolute best. If $9.99 is beyond your budget, or if you'd like to try a smaller sample of Earle's highly personal brand of bluegrass, by all means get this single. "Harlan Man" is my favorite Earle track ever, and is one of the most powerful bluegrass tracks I've ever heard. It tells a miner's story from a confident, defiant point of view: "I'm a union man/Just like my Daddy and all my kin/I took a union stand/No matter what the company said." The music is astounding, surging and flat-out rocking in a way that bluegrass usually doesn't. "The Mountain" is the other side of the story, a poignant account of mining life: "Till one night I lay down and woke up to find/That my childhood was over, I went down in the mine." It's an achingly good bluegrass ballad full of wisdom and pain. You won't find a better complementary pair of songs anywhere, in any genre.