Steve Earle is a singer-songwriter, record producer, author, and actor. He released his first country music album in Nashville in 1982, later branching out into multiple genres of rock music, bluegrass, folk music and blues. In recovery from heroin addiction for 27 years, he identifies as a recovering folk singer, often performing songs about addiction and recovery.
Steve Earle has been creating intimate and personal music for well over four decades now. His songwriting has wound itself along a path from Texas to Tennessee and his education came in the form of learning from the best. 2009’s Grammy-nominated record TOWNES was a tribute to his dear friend and mentor, Townes Van Zandt. Ten years later Earle released, GUY - an album concentrated on paying homage to the late Guy Clark and the indelible friendship that they had formed in stories told through song. Earle's recent 2022 release of JERRY JEFF contains a 10-song collection of songs written by the gypsy songman, Jerry Jeff Walker (taken from www.homersmusic.com).
Earle has campaigned relentlessly against the death penalty, performing outside the Supreme Court for participants in an annual vigil protesting the Court's 1976 decision restoring execution as a legal form of punishment. In 2010, Earle was awarded the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's Shining Star of Abolition award in Lexington, Kentucky, at the annual conference of the NCADP.
Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)," from the singer's 2000 album Transcendental Blues, is based on Earle's relationship with Jonathan Nobles, who was executed on October 7, 1998 for the murders of two women. A video of Steve Earle performing Over Yonder can be found on YouTube at the video link above (click on the words "watch on YouTube" above, under the words "Video Unavailable").
Steve Earle befriended Nobles in 1988, and wrote in an article published in Tikkun magazine that while he was certain that Nobles was guilty, he was equally sure Nobles had become a changed man by the time of his death, having converted to Christianity and become a lay minister in prison. Earle was present as a witness at Nobles' execution at Huntsville Prison.
While Nobles' is the only execution the singer has witnessed, Earle befriended many other men on death row.
Earle has long advocated the abolition of the death penalty, and has worked with Journey of Hope, an anti-capital punishment organization comprised of families of victims whose killers received death sentences. He has worked with the Tennessee Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty for many years. He was also active in the Illinois Moratorium Project, which advocated a halt to executions in Illinois after it was revealed that several convicted offenders on death row were innocent.
Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)," isn't Earle's first song about the death penalty. His 1990 album The Hard Way included the tune "Billy Austin," also sung from the point of view of a man on death row. He also wrote the song "Ellis Unit One," about a prison worker on death row, for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack.
In the photo below, taken at the Nashville home of investigative journalist Liliana Segura and journalist/author Radley Balko, I am seen (Jan. 2,2023) interviewing Steve Earle about his experience as a witness of the 1998 execution of Jonathan Nobles.
