Warner Bros. will release remastered versions of six classic Steve Earle albums beginning with a trio of reissues which includes The Mountain, Earle's Grammy-nominated 1999 collaboration with the legendary Del McCoury Band, the Grammy-nominated Transcendental Blues, originally released in 2000, and Earle's 2002 compilation album, Sidetracks. Following will be 2002's Jerusalem, which contains the controversial "John Walker's Blues," Earle's 2003 live set, Just An American Boy, and his Grammy-winning 2004 album, The Revolution Starts Now. This will mark the first time that Sidetracks and Just An American Boy have been released on vinyl.
Steve Earle's acclaimed 1999 album, The Mountain, was recorded with the Del McCoury Band and is "high risk, low tech" bluegrass – "one mic, no shit" - featuring guest appearances by such genre giants as Sam Bush, Kathy Chiavola, Cowboy Jack Clement, Iris Dement, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, David Ferguson, Emmylou Harris, Tim O'Brien, Marty Stuart, Gillian Welch, and Gene Wooten.
"This is my interpretation, to the best of my ability and with all of my heart (as well as the assistance of the best bluegrass band working today) of the music that Bill Monroe invented. Some of it I think he would have approved of ('why that's a fine number'). Some of it probably has him turning over in his grave ('that there ain't no part of nothin'). Of course that's all speculation. I do know this – Mr. Bill was very kind to me whenever we met during what turned out to be the last few years of his life.
"In December of 1995, he honored me by walking out, uninvited, on to the stage of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center twenty minutes into my show and remaining to sing five or six songs with Peter Rowan, Roy Huskey Jr., Norman Blake and myself. It was the biggest thrill of my life. When I look back now, I believe this record was really born that night." – Steve Earle