Justin Townes Earle

So I don't know if I've said it before, but I LOVE amazonmp3. I'm not sure how great it is for the artists, but they have fantastic deals for those of us with music addictions. Every month they have at least 50 albums for only $5, plus a daily deal where albums are sometimes as cheap as $1.99. Nevermind the tons of free mp3s that they offer as an added bonus. I rarely buy hard copies of stuff anymore. The main reasons being that I don't have the room for it, or that the music I want is impossible to find in stores. If it's a band I really love, I buy their stuff at shows or I'll pre-order a new release but the internet has just made things so damn convenient. The first of the month is one of my favorite days now because I get to go through and see what $5 albums I don't own yet. This month, I was pleased to find Justin Townes Earle's (son of legend Steve Earle) Harlem River Blues on sale. I've been meaning to check him out for a while & even more so recently because he's on the bill for the Newport Folk Festival this summer. Classified as a country album, I find that Harlem River Blues has more of a folk/singer-songwriter feel to it. The songs he sings are timeless & if you didn't know, you'd think you were listening to something made decades ago. The album is about New York but told through the eyes of Nashville, TN. "One More Night In Brooklyn" expresses this the best. "Christchurch Woman" & "Rogers Park" are my favorites but save for "Workin' for the MTA" (I just can't get into a song about working on a railroad), they're all great. Hear the title track and check out a great in-store video.

Harlem River Blues