On a farewell album to his beloved son, Steve Earle reprises ten of J.T.’s songs.
Barry Gibb and a host of Nashville stars offer “beautiful” country takes on the Bee Gees’s greatest tracks.
And Schoenberg’s
1
J.T.
Justin Townes (“J.T.”) Earle, who died of an overdose in August aged 38, was a talented singer-songwriter cut from “the same mould” as his more famous father, Steve Earle, said Neil Spencer in The Observer. J.T. had the “same mix of Americana influences, the same wearied twang to his vocals, the same inspired way with a lyric” – and, alas, the same personal demons. On this farewell album to his beloved son, Steve Earle reprises ten of J.T.’s songs, and the results are made all the more moving by the fact that he “delivers the songs straight, only occasionally letting a sense of loss intrude”.
Last modified on Fri 8 Jan 2021 03.18 EST
More than one piece of headily romantic music was inspired by Richard Dehmelâs 1896 poem Verklärte Nacht, or Transfigured Night. The most familiar remains Schoenbergâs string masterpiece, first conceived as a sextet in 1899, reworked for string orchestra nearly two decades later and rarely very far from its composerâs mind for the rest of his life. This, in its orchestral version, is the pivotal piece on this recording, and it finds Edward Gardner drawing playing of sumptuous intensity but also ravishing delicacy from the strings of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, recorded in the studio days before the first lockdown.