Singer-Songwriter Justin Townes Earle Dies at 38

His most recent album, and second for the New West label, “The Saint of Lost Causes,” came out in 2019. He had continued to tour behind it up through March, when the pandemic brought a halt to live shows.

In an interview last year with The Boot, Earle talked about his soon-to-be 2-year-old daughter, Etta St. James, and how she inspired him to write a less inward, more socially conscious set of material for what turned out to be his swan song.

“My daughter is probably the reason I stopped writing songs that were so inward and started looking out into the world,” he admits. “I had to start worrying about the world because of her. I bought her a 9MM [handgun] the day she was born because I’m frightened like hell for her. … “I have a daughter; I can’t stop caring,” Earle says, with an obvious hint of pragmatic pride. “I have a mother that I take care of. I can’t ever stop caring. What I will stop doing, eventually … it’s what the record says. You push down white trash or poor black people or whoever long enough, we’re going to react. We will react. And you won’t like it. Baby Boomers love to say they stopped the Vietnam War, but they also ruined the stock market. Congrats, guys. Meanwhile, I can’t get a job at McDonald’s because of my criminal record. So if I don’t play music, I sell dope. I’m a criminal, and if I don’t play music, I’d probably be in prison or dead.”

He continued, “”It’s hard, man. I’ve been committed to music since I was 15 years old,” he says. “I’m a good father. I taught my daughter to cuss when the Cubs lose — she’s an Earle, so she’ll be fine. I’m a good father, but I’m a s—ty husband. I’m built for the road; I don’t know what the hell to do at home. But you know what? I never said I’d be good at any of that. Nobody can ever ask me to stop doing what I do. If you want to do what I do — like Townes Van Zandt or Guy Clark  — you’re committed to it. Everybody else around you has to understand that.”

Reviewing his latest album for Rolling Stone last year, critic Jonathan Bernstein wrote, “From the beginning, Earle has been a relentlessly principled artist, fixed in his old-fashioned ways of what it means to be a 21st century singer-songwriter. The roots revival Earle helped usher in earlier this decade with albums like 2010’s Harlem River Blues has since largely passed him in favor of smoother-voiced traditionalists like Jason Isbell, and yet, on his latest, Earle remains more attached than ever to his own treasured lost causes: old-school folk storytelling, out-of-date pre-rock stylings, and the utter centrality of album making in the era of streaming. … The Saint of Lost Causes lives up to its title, serving as a refreshing reminder of what the songwriter has always done best.”