Steve Earle & The Dukes have shared the lead single from their forthcoming album, Ghosts of West Virginia, entitled “Devil Put the Coal in the Ground”.
The song, as with the rest of Ghosts of West Virginia, comes from the impending play Coal Country, set to open on March 3rd at The Public Theatre in New York. The documentary-style play tells the story of the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in Raleigh County, WV, that left 29 miners dead after an explosion in 2010. Through first-hand testimonials from the families of miners who died in the accident, coupled with Earle’s folk-roots music, playwrights Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen tell the story of a region both forgotten by a country trying to move forward and also decried by a progressive ideology of trying to correct the past. In the middle of tragedy and progress fall these bereaved families whose stories are told through documentarians and Earle’s music.
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“Devil Put the Coal in the Ground” serves as audiences’ first taste of Earle’s contribution to the play, as well as his first original music since his 2017 album So You Wannabe an Outlaw. The single has a lo-fidelity air that gives the impression it wasn’t recorded in any sort of high-tech studio, but that it was pulled from the Earth, like the coal itself. As Earle repeats the lines, “devil put the coal in the ground”, his gruff voice accentuates the drawn-out end of the phrase, while a finger-picking banjo builds a repetitive cycle. The optimistic ode to the future, “That’ll be a diamond someday,” is quickly dashed by the reality of “you’ll be long gone, dead, and away/that’ll be a diamond someday.” An electric guitar comes to soar above the otherwise acoustic number, only to roll back for Earle’s refrain of “wake up in the morning and pray/keep the wolf from my door, devil at bay/wake up in the morning and pray.”
Listen to “Devil Put the Coal in the Ground” from Steve Earle & The Dukes’ forthcoming album, Ghosts of West Virginia, due out on May 22nd via New West Records.
Steve Earle & The Dukes – “Devil Put the Coal in the Ground”
[Video: New West Records]
In addition to the single, Earle has also announced new June tour dates that will see the veteran folk singer play a number of gigs with The Dukes. The new shows start with an appearance at the Kent Stage in Kent, OH, on June 8th. From there, Earle and The Dukes travel up the Northeast with shows in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Maine. Head to Earle’s website for tickets and information, and scroll down for a full list of tour dates as well as a tracklisting for Ghosts of West Virginia.
[H/T New York Times]