'Guitar Town'

I initially got interested in Steve Earle in college after reading about his dealings with hard drugs and his many redemptions. "Guitar Town" was always the seminal record for the guy.

Then I watched "The Wire," where he plays a reformed drug addict who mentors one of the show's main characters, a struggling drug addict.

At that point, I decided to search for "Guitar Town" and I found it, ironically, not in my home state of Texas, but in a too cool for school Manhattan record shop.

Like Joe Ely's "Honky Tonk Masquerade," I was underwhelmed with the first listen and decided to give the record time to breath, like a good wine. Or any wine.

Five or six listens and two months later and it still hasn't done anything for me. It's bland and cliche for a guy trying to make a country record in the 1980s without sounding like everything coming out of Nashville.

I don't know when Earle started doing drugs. If I had to judge by his art, I would assume it was after the 1986 release of "Guitar Town" because if that album was made on drugs, Earle needed a new dealer.