To describe Steve Earle's music as country-rock is somewhat of a

misnomer. In fact, it is a clear understatement.

At best, the term brings to mind the steel guitar-laced pathos of

Gram Parsons or the Scud Mountain Boys. At worst, it triggers

flashbacks to a time when the Eagles and Poco roamed America

on a horse with no name.

In Earle's case, I'd prefer the term country-RAWK! Only he could

get away with grafting Metallica-copped riffs onto the chorus of

Copperhead Road's hit single title track. For the record, the

video for "Copperhead Road" caused the eyes of my friend Gabe

Potter's TNN-watching mother to nearly pop out of their sockets

the first time she saw it.

Steve Earle's country-RAWK works best when he tricks us into

believing he's gonna sing another pretty ballad, and then blows us

out of the water the way he does on the chorus of "NYC," a

collaboration with the Supersuckers off his new album El

Corazon. "NYC" begins with Earle strumming his acoustic

guitar during the first verse, as if to sucker you in before he and his

Supersucker buddies lurch into a Ramones-meets-Sabbath

distorto riff that anchors the chorus.

Whew!

Truth be told, most of El Corazon isn't only here to RAWK-

out. It is instead a mixture of everything Earle does best: beautiful

acoustic ballads, politically-charged folk songs, pedal-to-the-metal

rockers, and breathtaking male-female country duets.

Perhaps El Corazon's best song is its first, "Christmas in

Washington."

It is a bare-bones leftist protest song that can stand up to anything

on Springsteen's Ghost of Tom Joad, and sometimes goes

Springsteen one

better. In it he sings, "It was Christmastime in Washington. The

Democrats rehearsed gettin' into gear for four more years of things

not gettin' worse. The Republicans drank whiskey neat and

thanked their lucky stars. They said, 'He cannot seek another

term, there'll be no more FDR's.' I sat home in Tennessee, starin'

at the screen with an uneasy feelin' in my chest and wondering

what it means."

During the chorus Earle conjures the ghost of Emma Goldman and

pleads, "Come back Woody Guthrie. Come back to us now. Tear

your eyes from paradise and rise again somehow."

The song is a bold statement from a complex man who cannot be

easily categorized musically, socially or politically. It is that

complexity which keeps his music fresh and keeps us guessing

what he'll do or say or play next -- just like any good artist should.