‘Tree’ tour timely 30 yrs later – Woods honor southern rock tradition

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On “The Joshua Tree” tour, they’re delivering the message sonically and visually, backed by a stadium-wide high-resolution video screen.

Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. wrapped the first week of their North American and European tour Sunday with a two-hour show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. They played their Grammy-winning album in its entirety in front of a packed house that included Maria Shriver, Josh Brolin and Quincy Jones.

Bono sang a few bars from the “La La Land” song “City of Stars,” gave a shout-out to his wife and daughters, and dedicated a song to the late Chris Cornell.

U2 knows how to put on an arena spectacular, and “The Joshua Tree” delivers — with a heavy dose of politics. “The Joshua Tree” was already political, inspired by the band’s fascination with American ideals and ironies. At Sunday’s show, they bookended the album with socially conscious songs such as “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and 2012’s “Miss Syria (Sarajevo),” during which images of war-raved Syria filled the massive screen.

An animated, anti-Donald Trump video also played.

The Steel Woods, “Straw in the Wind” (Woods Music/Thirty Tigers)

Fame Studios producer Rick Hall maintains that southern rock was born the day Duane Allman goaded Wilson Pickett into covering the Beatles’ “Hey Jude.” Allman proceeded to tear down Hall’s Muscle Shoals, Alabama studio with a series of guitar fills that spawned a half-century of imitators.

Over time that sound made its way from the Allman Brothers and other pioneers to Nashville’s country scene, where its sway remains obvious today.

Into this landscape come the Steel Woods, a Nashville band that bills itself as a hybrid of styles, from Americana to bluegrass to rhythm and blues.  (AP)

But they make no bones about being “steeped in the ethos of southern rock,” which is obvious from the first steely twang of their debut album, “Straw in the Wind.”

This is, above all, a Southern rock album — and a good one.

The album blends styles but draws its strength from power chords and soaring guitar solos set firmly in the southern rock ethos. Compelling vocals by Wes Bayliss wouldn’t be out of place on an early Marshall Tucker Band album.

Whether on a galloping murder romp called “Della Jane’s Heart” or the ballad “If We Never Go,” the Steel Woods demonstrate with gusto that this genre isn’t played out.

So no, the Steel Woods may not open new doors here the way Allman and others did way back when. But they do walk through the door in style.

Justin Townes Earle, “Kids in the Street” (New West)

Justin Townes Earle seems to have put away some of the demons that animated his earlier work. He’s sober, newly married and about to become a father, and the songs he writes don’t sound as tortured.

But if it feels like he has sorted things out, Earle demonstrates on “Kids in the Street” that he still has plenty to say. He’s playful, adventurous and settling into his talent, with an album that rivals his best work.

And that’s saying something. Earle long ago established himself as a first-rate singer-songwriter, living up to his legacy as the son of the one of world’s great songwriters, Steve Earle, and the namesake of another, Townes Van Zandt.

Now there’s a comfortable confidence — and less torture. He explains his newfound maturity on “What’s Goin’ Wrong” when he sings: “Now I’m not certain, but maybe I am learning. Maybe I’ll be the last in a long long line of hurting.”

And yet he’s still the next in a great line of songwriters, with a knack for putting an original imprint on what could have been a cliche. Earle does that wonderfully on the title cut, and again on “Faded Valentine,” a Patsy Cline-style journey through “a box of nothing much worth keeping.”

“Ask yourself has it been so long,” he sings wistfully, “that I’ve forgotten where I went wrong.”

He hasn’t forgotten, which lets his music retain its edge. But he has things in perspective. (AP)

By Sandy Cohen

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