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Heartworn Highways - back to the 70's

HackTone Records and Shout! Factory announce the CD release of Heartworn Highways, the whiskey-warm companion album to the cult documentary of the same name. Recorded in 1975-76 in Nashville and Austin, Heartworn Highways captures the birth of an alt-country movement light-years from the spit-polished Music Row.

Armed with little more than a camera and microphone (and maybe a case of Jack), the filmmakers captured lightning in a bottle, spotlighting a particular band of brothers--Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, John Hiatt, Guy Clark and perennial outsider David Allan Coe--at the dawn of their careers. They also captured inspired performances from relative unknowns Gamble Rogers and Larry Jon Wilson that will instantly convert listeners into adoring fans.

The CD features 20 audio performances recorded for the film, as well as key dialogue excerpts. After more than six months of painstaking audio restoration from the raw Nagra tapes, each song has been restored to its unedited length, speed corrected, and remastered to stunning audiophile quality.

Heartworn Highways includes the previously unreleased versions of “Waitin' Around To Die” and “Pancho and Lefty” by Townes van Zandt, “Desperados Waiting for a Train” and “LA Freeway” by Guy Clark, the unreleased song “One for the One” by John Hiatt and the first recording ever of “Mercenary Song” by Steve Earle. And a spontaneous, whiskey-soaked version of “Silent Night” sung by Steve Earle, Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell and Steve Young during Christmas Eve at Guy's house is unexpectedly beautiful.



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