Steve Earle's Blues with Benefits

Rock, folk, blues, country, everything troubadour Steve Earle says his latest album Terraplane was influenced by Howling Wolf...and ZZ Top. Tell that to the Steve who's snarling like an Exile-era Mick Jagger on the cheekily-titled "Baby Baby Baby (Baby)." Wherever the inspiration comes from, the new album is as authentic a blues outing as you'll find in 2015. Sharing a name with a long-dead automobile, the record sees Earle returning his sonic palette to the scales and growls of the blues: a rich channel for his notoriously acerbic songwriting. Click on the link above at noon to hear Steve Earle play live in the Soundcheck studio, and talk about his new annual benefit show at Town Hall on 12/14, which features his son Justin Townes Earle, Jackson Browne, and other special guests raising funds and awareness for children diagnosed with autism.