I wrote recently about Hank Williams III's quest to rescue country music from a faded modernity of computerized backing tracks and lycra-clad artists and return it to the rough and real place it came from. But Hank Williams III's is only one interpretation of country history. Back in the mid 1970s, Austin and Nashville were home to a crop of young songwriters with rural roots and the heads of poets, songwriters who staged a quiet revolution against the cookie-cutter genteelness that was country's stock in trade at the time. Their names have gone on to renown in some circles: Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, David Allan Coe, Townes Van Zandt, Gamble Rodgers, and John Hiatt, to name a few.
All these people are a little grey and a little grizzled now, and the sound they pioneered - the immediate predecessor to what we now call Alternative Country or Americana - has been around for so long it's hard to remember there was a time when it was brand new.
Fortuitously, film director James Szalapski was in Austin at the time and was moved to preserve this emergent alt-country scene in a 1976 documentary he called Heartworn Highways. This film has become over the years a cult classic, little seen but much revered, and it has now been cleaned up for a 30th anniversary DVD release by HackTone and Shout! Factory.
The labels have also put together a soundtrack to the film, a companion piece intended to build upon and embellish the documentary's musical narrative. Drawn from the original full session tapes, the soundtrack is a rambling 26-track compilation of intimate performances, entertainingly inebriated stage patter about whiskey and music, and some very good songs played by some very talented folks.
Of historical note is the fact that the album contains the very first recordings by alt-country icons Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, and John Hiatt. If like me you only know these artists by their later work, Heartworn Highways is a bit of a revelation. Though a little rough and maybe a little less accomplished than their later stuff, the songs here belong unmistakably to their creators. John Hiatt's sharp lyrical poetry, Rodney Crowell's gift for atmosphere for melody, and Steve Earle's scrappy defiance (and leftism) are already in full view. But these treasures are only the smallest part of what makes Heartworn Highways worth a listen.
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