Steve Earle released I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive back in April this year which accompanied the publication of his first novel sharing the same title which brings to life the addiction, and redemption of Doc Ebersole as he is haunted by his former patient, Hank Williams.
The album shares the Hank William’s link in that the title was the last track that Hank Williams released whilst alive and it went to No. 1 the week after he died. The irony of that wasn’t lost on Steve when he recently mentioned that “we used to make records for girls and now we make’em for nerds, business has changed.” The track isn’t covered on the album but you can see Steve performing it below at a book launch.
About The Book
Doc Ebersole lives with the ghost of Hank Williams – not just in the figurative sense, not just because Doc was one of the last people to see him alive, and not just because Doc is rumoured to have given Hank the final morphine dose that killed him.
In 1963, ten years after Hank’s death, Doc is himself wracked by addiction. Having lost his licence to practise medicine, his morphine habit isn’t as easy to support as it used to be. So he lives in a rented room in the red-light district on the south side of San Antonio, performing abortions and patching up the odd knife or gunshot wound.
But when Graciela, a young Mexican immigrant, appears in the neighbourhood in search of Doc’s services, miraculous things begin to happen. Graciela sustains a wound on her wrist that never heals, yet she heals others with the touch of her hand. Everyone she meets is transformed for the better, except, maybe, for Hank’s angry ghost – who isn’t at all pleased to see Doc doing well.
A brilliant excavation of an obscure piece of music history and a marvellous novel in its own right, Steve Earle’s I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive is a ballad of regret and redemption, and of the ways in which we remake ourselves and our world through the smallest of miracles.
Free Download from the Album and Book Preview
Video:
Hank Williams Original Version:
Album Track: Every Part Of Me
Tour Dates
All dates are with Steve’s band The Dukes (and Duchesses) except ** which also feat. Allison Moorer
October 9 Paradiso, Amsterdam, NL
October 10 AB, Brussels, BL
October 12 Metropool, Hengelo, NL
October 13 Effenaar, Eindhoven, NL
October 15 Lorensbergsteatern Gothenburg **
October 16 Filadelfiakyrkan Stockholm **
October 19 KB, Malmo
October 18 Rockefeller, Oslo, NO
October 20 Markthalle, Hamburg, DE
October 22 La Flêche d’Or Paris, FR
October 24 St Davids Hall Cardiff, UK
October 25 Royal Festival Hall, London, UK
October 26 The Sage, Gateshead, UK
October 27 O2 Academy, Glasgow, UK
October 29 Grand Opera House, York, UK
October 30 The Dome, Brighton, UK
October 31 THSH, Birmingham, UK
November 2 Assembly Rooms, Derby, UK
November 3 Academy, Manchester, UK
November 5 Mandela Hall, Belfast, IE
November 6 Olympia Theatre, Dublin, IE
November 9 Corn Exchange, Cabridge, UK
November 10 Irish Centre, Leeds, UK
**w/ The Dukes (and Duchesses) feat. Allison Moorer
Purchase Links:
Buy Book: I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive
Buy Album: I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive