Editor’s note: “Guitar Town” is not a one-hit wonder. Steve Earle never charted a song in the Billboard Top 40. Sometimes I just write about great songs and this is one of them.

I had a conversation with a friend today and she described how she “hates any music with twangy guitars or fiddles.” Twang gets an undeserved bad rap. The more twang I hear, the more I like it. Especially the twangy sounds of Steve Earle.

If you don’t know Steve Earle, let me introduce you. He was one of the great shining lights of country music when his debut album Guitar Town was released in 1986. Rolling Stone Magazine named it one of the “100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s.” Pretty good for a twangy country record and I’ve loved it since the first time I heard Guitar Town nearly 20 years ago.

Alas, Steve was too country for country radio and after two albums, they tried to market him as a mix of Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp. It worked—almost—for his 1988 recording, Copperhead Road. If you like Mellencamp music from the late 1980s, you’ll adore Copperhead Road.

Then Steve’s luck dried up. As a heroin junkie he recorded two records that did nothing on the charts. Soon he was homeless and arrested for drug and gun possession and sentenced to hard time in the big house. Upon his release, he dropped two solid records in 18 months. If you like rootsy bluegrass, you’ll love Train ‘A Comin’ from 1996. Since then Steve has worked the music circuit as the most left-wing, libertarian country music artist the world has ever known.

Did I forget to mention he has been married seven times to six women? The man is a legend.

Two of my favorite twang-filled Earle songs are “Hillbilly Highway” and “Guitar Town.” They’re the first two tracks from Guitar Town and they never get old—at least in my head. And they’re in my head again tonight.

Buy Steve Earle’s Greatest Hits. Trust me, it’s really great stuff

Listen to Guitar Town by Steve Earle