Steve Earle Brings Classics, Guy Clark Tribute to Toad Suck Daze

by Julian Spivey
Steve Earle brought his terrific brand of outlaw country and rock music to Conway, Ark.’s annual Toad Suck Daze Festival on Saturday, May 4 for a fantastic night of rip-roaring tunes.
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Earle is on tour promoting his latest release, Guy, a tribute album to his friend and mentor Guy Clark, who died in 2016. Earle performed six straight Clark songs to open his show at Toad Suck Daze on Saturday night and it proved to be a brilliant tribute to one of the all-time greatest (and most underrated) singer-songwriters. Earle would tell stories of his friendship with Clark throughout these performances, including the last time he ever saw him before his death.

If any other artist had chosen to open a show with six consecutive cover songs it might be a poor decision – it’s certainly a risky one either way – but the mix of Earle performing songs of his friend and mentor was terrific. Unfortunately, I never had the honor of seeing Clark perform in person, but this was the closest thing I’ll ever get, and it truly made my evening.

Earle began his Clark tribute with “Dublin Blues,” the most recent of Clark’s songs he would perform on the night, and one of his all-time greatest. He would follow with the classic train song “Texas 1947,” “Rita Ballou” and “Heartbroke,” which Clark wrote and recorded and was taken to No. 1 on the Billboard country music chart in 1982 by Ricky Skaggs.

My favorite Clark covers by Earle on Saturday night were his final two – my two favorite Guy Clark songs – “Desperadoes Waiting for a Train” and “L.A. Freeway,” which both appeared on Clark’s 1975 debut Old No. 1. “Desperadoes Waiting for a Train” is simply one of the greatest story songs ever written about an old man and his young friend (likely a grandson) and, in my opinion, easily one of the 100 greatest songs ever written.

After his wonderful tribute to his dear friend Earle begin his set of his own brilliantly written songs with “Tom Ames’ Prayer,” a song Clark would often ask him to perform. When he burst into “I Feel Alright,” the title track of his 1996 album, things really began to rock. The song might sound familiar to Miranda Lambert fans as it was so similar to her 2005 hit “Kerosene,” which she had to give Earle a co-write on after she “unconsciously copied it almost exactly.”

My favorite Earle song has always been “Guitar Town,” the title track to his amazing 1986 debut, which was one of my favorite performances from him both times I’ve seen him now. Him performing “Guitar Town” and the fan-favorite “Copperhead Road,” from 1988, back-to-back was definitely a highlight of his Toad Suck Daze performance. If the crowd hadn’t already been completely into the show, they certainly were when the iconic bagpipes of “Copperhead Road” (which are played from a previous recording in his live show) began.

Earle’s longtime backing band The Dukes are a mixture of incredibly talented musicians and one of the great showings of the night was Earle’s duet of “Baby’s Just as Mean as Me” with his fiddle player and background vocalist Eleanor Whitmore, which had appeared on his 2015 album Terraplane. It’s a great bluesy number that really shows off her fantastic vocals.

Whitmore’s fiddle playing was terrific the entire show, none more so than her performance on “The Galway Girl,” off Earle’s 2000 album Transcendental Blues. The Celtic folk tune has become one of Earle’s standards of his career and basically shows he can do any type of rootsy music he wants and make it sound as good as anybody who’s ever done it.

A couple of the highlights from Earle’s later performances in his set were from his most recent album of original songs, 2017’s So You Wanna Be An Outlaw, including the title track to that album, as well as the ode to fireman, specifically hot shot crews, “The Firebreak Line.” So You Wanna Be An Outlaw was Earle’s return to his outlaw country-rock roots and is among the finest releases of his career.

After receiving uproarious applause from the Toad Suck Daze crowd Earle returned to the main stage at downtown Conway’s Simon Park for a great two-song encore that was heavily influenced by the great Bruce Springsteen. Earle began the encore with the first verse of the Springsteen classic “Racing in the Streets” before segueing into his 1987 song “Sweet Little ’66.” The car themed encore would continue and end with a cover of Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac,” which was the B-side to his biggest career hit “Dancing in the Dark.”

Before Earle took the stage on Saturday night the Toad Suck Daze crowd was mesmerized by country music singer-songwriter Erin Enderlin, who hails from right here in Conway. Enderlin is a longstanding Nashville songwriter who has penned hits like Alan Jackson’s “Monday Morning Church” and Lee Ann Womack’s “Last Call.” Her music is traditional country to its core.

Among the many highlights from Enderlin’s set were “Caroline,” “Baby Sister” and “Jesse Joe’s Cigarette” from her critically-acclaimed 2017 release Whiskeytown Crier.

It was Enderlin’s slower tunes like “The Blues Are Alive & Well” and “Ain’t It Just Like a Cowboy,” from that album, that really stood out on Saturday night and sounded beautiful as the Conway sun was setting. She told that crowd that the legendary Merle Haggard told her he really liked “Ain’t It Just Like a Cowboy” and as a result it had become her favorite song of hers.

Enderlin has an EP, Chapter One: Tonight I Don’t Give a Damn, that just hit Spotify and other music streaming services the day before that includes the terrific title track of that EP. She also performed a newish song, released on streaming services last year, called “These Boots” that sounds like it should be a huge country hit if country music still played the kind of traditional sounding country music that Enderlin writes and sings. If you’ve never heard her stuff, I highly recommend checking her out. 

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