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There was a time, however, when it seemed that Steve wouldn't get down the academic skills to do either. "Hell" is what he says he put his parents through. Born in Fort Monroe, Va., Earle grew up in Schertz, Texas, just 17 miles northeast of San Antonio. It was the kind of place Earle recalls in Someday: "There ain't a lot you can do in this town/ You drive down to the lake and then you turn back around." As Earle grew up, his own trips out of town got more frequent, the turnarounds longer. "I wasn't a bad kid, I wasn't gettin' in a lot of trouble," he remembers. "I just wanted to get away to walk the streets, mostly listening to all the songs I had in my head."
By the time he was 16, he made it to Houston, where he "slept on anybody's couch until I wore out my welcome." He hooked up with his uncle Nick Fain, who had lived with the family for a while and taught his nephew the rudiments of six-string rock guitar. "He was only five years older than I was," Earle says. "He was my hero." A friendship with Townes Van Zandt started Earle down the folk-music trail, where he eventually landed jobs on the coffeehouse circuit. "There was lots of noise and smoke. I became the world's loudest folk singer."
First married at 19, Earle hitched to Nashville while his wife was away and he thought he could make his mark. He moved there in 1974 and managed to write a few songs while cadging odd jobs. He built swimming pools. He worked house construction. Once, in 1975, a dream almost came true: Elvis was going to record one of Earle's songs, but he never showed up at the studio. After cutting a few singles for Epic and an album for CBS that was shelved, Earle recalls, "I lost all my confidence. I thought I had lost my edge."
There were other bad times and two more failed marriages. One of Earle's sweetest tunes is a lullaby called Little Rock 'n' Roller, sung by a traveling musician to a faraway son. "That song was no fun to write, and it isn't any fun to sing," says Earle, who has a son of his own. "But I really needed to write it. It made me feel better."
Guitar Town has some of the frantic strength of a last good shot, which it was. Earle is 31,"the tour bus is home," and making it in country music needs a young man's grit after all. But MCA has given him a seven-album contract, and some material for the new record is getting an airing in concert. Those new songs nail a listener right to the spot. Steve Earle is already fulfilling his promise even before he has stopped being promising. No time to waste.