Essential Steve Earle? This Isn’t It

“Guitar Town,” Steve Earle’s 1986 album about working-class aspirations and frustrations, was so rich in character and purpose that critics compared the country-based singer-songwriter to rockers like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty.

Five songs from that album form the heart of the just-released “Essential Steve Earle,” a retrospective CD from MCA Records.

In “Good Ol’ Boy,” one of the five tunes, Earle spoke about blue-collar resentment during a period of economic woes:

Gettin’ tough

Just my luck

I was born in the land of plenty

Now there’s not enough.

In the equally affecting “Someday,” Earle--a Virginia native who was raised in Texas--captured marvelously the feelings of a small-town gas station worker who has no sense of future.

They ask me ,

How far into Memphis, son,

And where’s the nearest beer.

They don’t even know

That there’s a town around here.

By the time “Guitar Town” was released, Earle had been scrambling for almost half of his 31 years to get attention in the music business. He had some success as a writer (one of his songs was a hit in 1982 for Johnny Lee) and he released three rockabilly-oriented singles on Epic Records.

But it wasn’t until the 1986 album that people really started taking notice. The problem is that Earle’s subsequent recordings failed to live up to the promise.

Instead of the intimacy and detail of “Guitar Town,” his imagery became more obvious and the social commentary more self-conscious on 1987’s “Exit 0” and 1988’s “Copperhead Road” albums.

In “Essential Steve Earle,” acclaimed Nashville record producer Tony Brown, who co-produced the singer’s three MCA albums in the ‘80s, tries to bring Earle’s best moments from the albums together in a single package. He only partially succeeds.

There are some worthy non-”Guitar Town” moments--including the wanderlust bite of “Nowhere Road” and the fiery “The Week of Living Dangerously.” Mostly, however, the additional tracks are divided between the heavy-handed side of Earle or movie soundtrack filler (yet another version of “Six Days on the Road”).

This compilation is eminently listenable, but the essential Earle remains “Guitar Town.”