If ever there was an album that you wish didn’t need to be released then it is J.T., Steve Earle & The Dukes’ deeply affecting record of his son Justin Townes Earle’s songs together with one original, the moving Last Words.

Earle said making the record “wasn’t cathartic as much as it was therapeutic. I made the record because I needed to. It’s the only way I knew to say goodbye.”

It is an incredible testament to the profound songwriting abilities of his son who possessed the uncanny ability through his songs to confide intense pain and sorrow with shards of light and, sometimes, glimmers of hope. By turns tender, haunting, furious and poignant, the interpretations of his songs on J.T. are a heartbreaking celebration as much as a commemoration of a remarkable talent, and while we wish there had been no need for it, we are glad to have it.

Listen to Lone Pine Hill and Champagne Corolla below. Click through to buy with all proceeds going into a Trust fund for his granddaughter Etta St. James Earle.

 

 

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