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Many musicians turn into hard living party animals once they have got used to the fame and adulation that success has brought them. Steve Earle, however, lived his life with the controls set on maximum even in the days when he was a total unknown. His fame came despite his wild ways and unwillingness to compromise and to the other way around. In some ways he has lost out because of his need to stick to his guns, the level of fame he sought came to him later than most and he missed some of the opportunities that have been offered to the likes of Ryan Adams who seems to be a worthy pretender to Earle's throne both musically and in his lifestyle. That said because of his ways he has made the music that he wanted to make and not had to water down his vision in the way that his contemporaries, Lyle Lovett and Nanci Griffiths felt obliged to do. We Aint Ever Satisfied is the proof, albeit the short snapshot version, that Earle was right to play the game his way, for in not bowing down to the marketing men, the suits and the record company bosses he has produced some musical gems and 12 of them compromise this 1992 album.

Earle is a Texan who cut his musical teeth in Nashville and was part of a group of outsiders to the ultra conservative country set up of the time. Earle worked with such luminaries as Guy Clarke and Townes Van Zant both of whom achieved a reasonable amount of success but Earle, who always said that he would make his first album at 21 had to wait another 10 years for his thing to kick off. By then he was as much infamous for his difficult attitude as he was famous for his raw emotive live shows. By the time Guitar Town, the debut album, saw the light of day the whole scene was in two camps. You either loved him or hated him, there were not many in-between. Guitar Town was scene as a revolution within the safe and ordered world of country music at that time, part country, part folk and part rock and it didn't hurt that Bruce Springsteen, a man he was often compared to, was seen buying his album. The first five tracks on the album are from the debut.

The opening track, Guitar Town, like most of his work, contains a lot about the man himself, his road lifestyle, his drive to succeed and it opens in good old country style before picking up the beat and rocking off in its own direction. If not a reinvention of country music it certainly revisits the older styles and lyrical content. Richard Bennetts heavy "twang" to his guitar gives it what Steve himself

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