Event Listing - Music

Wed May 7

Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart

Tel. 831.646.1415
Website

Location	Date and Time
Monterey Live 414 Alvarado St. Monterey, CA 93940 district: Monterey	Wed May 7 (7:30pm)

Description

Music Row songwriting credentials combined with real-deal, school-of-hard-knocks, life experience results in fresh and genuine country folk blues. Stacey's Texas twang and Mark's simpatico-harmonies and songwriting-chops beget the warm, homespun music of this real-life married duo.

Anyone unfamiliar with Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart might at first get the wrong impression from the title of their new "S&M Communion Bread" (Funzalo), but the record is playfully named after a defunct Nashville baking company whose products were likely as wholesome as the couple's reliable roots music. Leaving controversy to her infamous brother, Steve Earle, Stacey and husband Mark use their voices and guitars to deliver plainspoken tales over similarly unvarnished bluegrass, folk-country and Appalachian gospel.

Over the last few years, within the first three sentences of any review of her work, it's been virtually obligatory to say, yes, Stacey Earle is the sister of Steve Earle. Their latest release continues to embellish her reputation as a distinctive and remarkable artist in her own right. Part of her charm, and she is nearly irresistible, is that she's almost impossible to pin any one label on. Alt.-country, straight-up-hard-core-country, folk, singer-songwriter, Americana, all of these, and more, hit the mark. Earle's lyrics and vocals are "quirky," yet completely captivating. And Stuart, for his part, is far from a hanger-on or an afterthought. He's a compelling vocalist and songwriting partner. Media may always feel compelled to to refer to Stacey as "Steve's sister," but she's well out of his shadow at this point.

They have opened for some of the best of the road. Joan Baez, Steve Earle, Willie Nelson, Ralph Stanley, Richard Thompson, Gregg Brown, Iris Dement.