Sugarland Yearns for Steve Earle
Every artist was inspired by someone. Many claim their lives were forever changed the first time they heard Waylon, Willie or Merle. But rarely does self-proclaimed troubadour Steve Earle get any love from country's mainstream.
That will change on Tuesday (July 22), when the world hears track number 11 on Sugarland's new album, Love on the Inside. The song's called "Steve Earle." And it's a very happy, very rockabilly look at the hopeless romantic in Earle. (He's been married seven times.) The story revolves around Nettles wanting to marry Earle just so he'll write a song for her. And the pedal steel revolves around Nettles' rich and twangy vocals. Except when the music just stops, and she rattles off her rapid-fire a cappella description of what life's going to be like when they do get married: kids who will need to go to college, a vacation house and lots of reggae music. Nettles and Bush have said they both loved what Steve Earle did for country music in his mid-‘80s heyday. So this song is a must-hear for anyone who lived in "Guitar Town" or took a trip down "Copperhead Road."
But for newer country fans who never knew Earle, this song still has that kind of hook ("Steve Earle, Steve Earle, please write a song for me") you can't get out of your head. It might make you like Earle. But it will most certainly make you love Sugarland all over again.
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flutterfly says:
This is a funny song, but I think it’s one of several on the new album where Jennifer Nettles oversings and overenunciates. I like where Sugarland’s songwriting goes on this album but between Jennifer Nettles’s oversinging and the increasingly weird sound of her head voice, this album isn’t as pleasant a listen as their previous ones.
Tanya says:
well everyone has at least one inspiration right like mine Jennifer Nettles of sugarland she is awesome, funny, beautiful, inspirational i can keep going on here but anyways she my idol.
#1 for jennifer nettles-sugarland
Kathryn says:
Flutterfly doesn’t know what he/she is talking about. The album is flawless, and there have been plenty of reviews to prove that already.
Ham says:
The emphasis in the song is on comedy. Of course it’s somewhat dramatic. They ending is priceless when Kristian is laughing about getting killed. This is their best effort yet.
David Nisbet, Scotland says:
Ok, so I listened to an advance copy of “their” album, and while I did actually like some of it (!) i’m still at a loss to figure out why they are labeled a Vocal Duo. I think Kristian contributed maybe two lines in the whole thing.
Amy W. says:
I just saw Sugarland in Illinois. I don’t think this album will be as great. But I hope I’m wrong. Good for them to be inspired by a great artist. Without that inspiration alot of performers wouldn’t be doing what they are today.
litepants says:
Sugarland founder sues current members
By BILL RANKIN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/07/2008
Sugarland founder Kristen Hall has filed suit seeking more than $1.5 million from current members of the group, Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush, who now have the nation’s No. 1 selling album.
Hall created the name “Sugarland” and founded the band in 2002. After Bush and Nettles came aboard later that year, the trio entered into an agreement in which they were supposed to equally share profits and losses, the suit says.
But after Hall left the band in late 2005 to pursue her own career, she was excluded from her share of the partnership’s profits, says the lawsuit.
The suit, filed July 29 in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, seeks more than $1.5 million in profits from the partnership, along with interest, attorneys fees and “a formal accounting of all partnership affairs and businesses.”
By excluding Hall from the Sugarland partnership and failing to pay her share of the income and profits, Nettles and Bush “have acted in bad faith, have been stubbornly litigious and have caused [Hall] unnecessary trouble and expense,” the lawsuit says.
Sugarland’s record-label publicist referred calls to the band’s Los Angeles lawyer, Gary Gilbert. His office said he was out of town and unavailable for comment Thursday.Sugarland’s “Love on the Inside,” which debuted last month, is currently No. 1 on the Billboard music charts. Entertainment Weekly recently dubbed the band “the most exciting country act since the Dixie Chicks.”
According to the lawsuit, from mid-2002 until Dec. 20, 2005, Hall, Nettles and Bush “jointly endeavored to make the band Sugarland a creative and commercial success, and Hall contributed significant time, effort, energy and passion toward the creative and commercial success of Sugarland.”
This includes Hall’s work on the band’s debut, breakthrough single, “Baby Girl.” After the first two version’s of the song were received poorly by the band’s label, Hall re-recorded the song, which became one of the longest-charting debut singles in the history of country music, the suit says.
Hall wrote or co-wrote every song on the “Twice The Speed Of Life” album, which was released in October 2004 and reached double platinum — two million sold, according to the lawsuit. In 2005, Sugarland was awarded “Breakthrough Favorite New Artist” at the American Music Awards.