Musician Justin Townes Earle, an accomplished singer-songwriter and son of the acclaimed country rocker Steve Earle, has died at age 38.
“It is with tremendous sadness that we inform you of the passing of our son, husband, father and friend Justin,” said a message on his social media pages. “So many of you have relied on his music and lyrics over the years and we hope that his music will continue to guide you on your journeys.”
No cause of death was revealed.
Prominent fans expressed their grief on social media. “What a loss,” tweeted author Stephen King. “He was always kind to me and he’s gone too soon,” wrote rising country music star Margo Price.
Like his father, Earle struggled openly with addiction throughout much of his career. He began using drugs at age 14 and “by the time I was 16 I was completely off the rails,” he told the roots music magazine No Depression.
In his website biography he revealed that he’d done multiple stints in rehab before realizing “it’s not cool to die young, and it’s even less cool to die after 30.”
Earle bore the names of two musical giants — the last name from his father, the middle name taken from Townes Van Zandt, a singer-songwriter who mentored Steve Earle.
He often was lumped into the category of “Americana” artists and was honored twice by the Americana Music Association: as the year’s best emerging artist in 2009, and with the song of the year award for his composition “Harlem River Blues” in 2011.
He first debuted solo music in 2007, signing to Chicago’s Bloodshot Records and releasing a debut EP, “Yuma.”
In 2008, he delivered his full-length album, “The Good Life” — an extended look into the rich realism he penned in songs that touched folk, blues, soul and country roots. Gaining ears with textured songs anchored by nuanced characters, Earle would soon stretch his storytelling to the Grand Ole Opry and Bonnaroo.
Earle regularly released music throughout the decade-plus that followed his debut effort; Nashville-based New West Records released his ninth and last studio album, “The Saint of Lost Causes,” in May 2019.
Chicago weighed heavily in the songbook of the Nashville native, who moved from Tennessee to Chicago in 2000.
“I just went to visit [the city] and do a show there and didn’t want to leave,” he told the Sun-Times in 2017. “It definitely played a role in my early development as an artist, for sure.”
The lifelong Cubs fans settled at Touhy and Greenview for a time. “I was doing all the little shows I could get my hands on,” he said. “I was still learning a lot at that particular point in time. That was 17 years ago. I was a kid and Rogers Park was a very different place.”
The neighborhood became the title of a mournful song on his “Harlem River Blues” album in 2010. Earle sang:
Shadows on the wall
I ain’t got no place I can fall
Snowing in off the lake
Punching holes in the dark
Through the lonely streets
Of Rogers Park
He was back in Nashville by 2002.
Contributing: USA Today Network
