steve’s twentieth studio album is the result of a project he was asked to write some music for that involved a mining disaster ten years ago. in april 2010 a coal dust explosion 1000 feet underground killed 29 miners. the mining company was found to be at fault. the idea was to go to west virginia and interview the survivors and the families of the victims, and turn it into a play. the play went into production early this year, with steve doing the songs here acoustic style on the stage with them. in the meantime, steve gathered his band and the mastersons and created a more fleshed out version of these songs.

‘ghosts of west virginia’ explores the hardships of the coal mining life and does so using a number of musical styles – gospel, folk, bluegrass, celtic, and rock. recorded at new york city’s electric lady studios, it has a gritty and authentic sound to it. the first seven songs are directly from the play, and two of the last three are directly related (‘black lung’ and ‘the mine’), while the third is only tangentially related (‘fastest man alive’, about chuck yeager, who was born in west virginia). many of the songs are dripping with despair and anger, like the centerpiece ‘it’s about blood’, where steve eventually calls out the names of all 29 deceased as the song gets more and more intense. but there are also songs celebrating the good things about their lives, like the infectious ‘union, god and country’.

steve is rather well known for his liberal political views, but in a number of interviews he has mentioned that he ‘decided to make an album that spoke to and for people that didn’t vote the way he did’. another way he explained it was that if we don’t have common beliefs with others, then we need to learn how to communicate better. how appropriate that sounds right about now. steve earle absorbed the material and the people, and has told their story well.