Earle Returns in Fine Form With Career-Spanning Night

One hesitates to dismiss as trite something that’s heartening and necessary, but the story line of an artist’s return from drug-induced oblivion gets replayed so often that perhaps it’s best not to make too much of it.

That was clearly Steve Earle’s approach Saturday night at the Coach House, where he played his first Southern California concert since a forced four-year sabbatical spent bottoming out and recovering.

A quickly mumbled “good to be back” early in the show was all that Earle, who turns 41 on Wednesday, had to say about his recent struggles, aside from what was implicit in his music.

Earle’s singing voice is certainly worse for the wear that came with his long cycle of abuse--a cycle that ended with a 1994 arrest for heroin possession, followed by a short jail term and rehab.

The important thing is that Earle not only has made it back, but remains very, very good. He established himself from 1986-1990 as an A-list songwriter who straddled the line between literate country music and Springsteenian anthem-rock; he still looks the part of a scraggly bearded, tattooed biker renegade against Nashville’s customary polish and propriety.

In a career-spanning acoustic concert, Earle signaled that he has resumed normal business, with peak new songs not just hitting, but surpassing, the norms he established before his tailspin.

Things got off to an iffy start. A tinny sound mix blunted the impact of Earle’s accomplished band of vocal and instrumental heroes: Norman Blake and Peter Rowan accounted for guitars, mandolins, Dobro and fiddle, and Roy Huskey Jr. played upright bass--the same lineup that backed Earle on his deservedly acclaimed, bluegrass-flavored 1995 comeback album, “Train A Comin.’ ”

The sound mix eventually improved, but not enough to bring the professorial-looking Blake’s Dobro and guitar properly to the fore. Rowan’s mandolin and tenor harmonies came through nicely. His moment in the spotlight, singing a dire Old West tale of corrupt whites and victimized Native Americans, was a pyrotechnic stunner capped by amazing, throat-fluttering vocals in emulation of an Indian chant.

Earle’s singing, never sweet and pure to begin with, is now pinched and raspy. He is left with a twangy jalopy of a voice that manages to hold the melodic road over many rough patches. Now that most of its attractiveness is gone, authenticity must--and did--drive it to its expressive destinations.

The early lapses included a careless version of “Tom Ames’ Prayer” in which Earle rushed, swallowed or slurred too many lyrics, ruining the narrative flow of this tale of a 19th century gunslinger’s noble but misplaced self-reliance.

The boorish, intrusive chatter coming from a segment of the audience early on was mainly a reflection of these nuisances’ absence of manners, but partly a sign of the singer’s initial failure to connect. Earle didn’t let himself be thrown off by the talkers’ low roar: “That’s OK, they’ll pass out here pretty quick,” he assured the majority who had come to listen, but “pretty quick” didn’t come quickly enough.

The concert found its footing with “Goodbye,” a 1995-vintage song from “Train A Comin,’ ” which has already been covered by Emmylou Harris and has the makings of a folk-country standard.

Earle’s delivery of this aching ballad of loss and regret had the hushed and measured tone of internalized thought. He punctuated it at one point with a dignified sigh. Here was Earle’s most direct reflection on his lost years, but its lament felt universal, not like the stuff of celebrity true-confessions: “Was I off somewhere, or just too high? / But I can’t remember if we said goodbye.”

A solo segment followed “Goodbye,” and Earle turned it into a highlight as he strummed and finger-picked his way through some of his old anthems. Here was the clearest evidence that his fall and return have led to some rethinking (but not exactly repentance--in fact, Earle’s upcoming album, “I Feel Alright,” pointedly includes a raw, myth-weaving rocker called “The Unrepentant”).

In the original, recorded versions of “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied” and “The Other Kind,” Earle projected strong-willed swagger; only in the songs’ margins did he provide some truthful hedging of bets and acknowledgment of the costs involved in his ever-restless stance.

There isn’t much swagger left in the Earle who now sings the ostensibly boastful chorus, “There are those who break and bend, I’m the other kind.” His cracked, sputtering delivery made it sound more like the mantra of a desperately embattled, worn-down fellow raising a battered shield of pride and trying to convince himself of something he’s no longer so sure of.

The playful rag, “South Nashville Blues,” the only song Earle played from the upcoming album, took a wry, whistling-through-the-graveyard look at self-destructive behavior; together with the occasional quips in his song introductions, it showed that Earle isn’t taking himself too seriously.

He was strictly serious, though, in a long, trenchant introduction to his dark new gem, “Ellis Unit One.” The song stands out on the soundtrack album to “Dead Man Walking,” which also features the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Lyle Lovett. The Tim Robbins film and the song Earle wrote for it revolve around capital punishment; resisting any temptation to make a Statement, Earle instead wove a story, relating with rising drama and ever-narrowing focus the working routines and consequent nightmares of a death-row prison guard. A vivid song, a powerful concert moment and a very welcome return.

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There’s no need to say anything about the evening’s opening act, a local folk-rock foursome, except that it continued a dismaying pattern of local openers at the Coach House who aren’t close to being ready for a major stage.

While some of the club’s openers for important bills are accomplished contenders on the local scene, or at least sturdy, competent players and singers, some appear to be hired primarily for their ability to supplement the headliner’s draw by bringing in a platoon of family and friends.

Drawing power naturally has to be a consideration, but it’s a shame that quality locals can’t get the assignment for special nights such as this one.