FORBES: Steve Earle Wraps Up Annual City Winery Residency With Shannon McNally On Stage In Chicago

Over the course of the last several years, singer songwriter Steve Earle has developed a strong relationship with the City Winery chain of concert venues that has resulted in an annual residency series taking place at City Winery venues in places like New York, Chicago and Nashville.

This past December, Earle also partnered with City Winery in staging the fourth annual installment of his autism benefit. Earle is the father of an autistic son and, featuring guest spots from artists like Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes, raised $66,000 for the disease.

The Chicago residency alone typically spans four shows, featuring a pair each in both January and February 2019. This past Tuesday, Earle closed out this year's residency on stage in Chicago alongside singer songwriter Shannon McNally.

Earle mentioned Tuesday that he first met McNally at the City Winery establishment in New York during a live tribute to Emmylou Harris. He went on to guest during McNally's set and she repaid the favor later.

The pair sang "Goodbye" together from Earle's album Train a Comin.' Though not on that track, the 1995 album features Harris as a guest. And it was during that performance McNally came closest to conjuring up images of Earle's famed duets with the singer.

Performing solo acoustic, Earle was surrounded, sans Dukes or Duchesses, by a bevy of acoustic guitars and mandolins. And the stories, courtesy of both Earle and McNally, were every bit as important to the set as the songs.

"Y'all are so nice... not like playing Mississippi at all!" joked McNally early, tuning her guitar.

It was one of many self-deprecating moments from the New York-born singer who now calls Mississippi home. "I know it doesn't sound like it but I was born on Long Island... I can parallel park to prove it," she continued, eventually explaining her move from New Orleans to north Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina.

McNally's set drew nicely from her latest album, 2017's Black Irish, a collection of songs on which she covered Harris and worked closely with country singer Rodney Crowell. "I've still got a crush on this. That's what happens with new songs," she said on stage at City Winery.

From that record, "Banshee Moan" was particularly effective, referencing the Me Too movement, and name checking Harvey Weinstein. "I hope we get a real grasp on the consequence of power," McNally said.

From his 2015 album Terraplane, Earle began his solo set Tuesday with "Ain't Nobody's Daddy Now." "That's all this one does..." he joked following the performance, setting down his guitar. "But this one..." he continued, picking up another, moving the set into slightly more familiar territory in "My Old Friend the Blues," from his 1986 debut.

Earle told stories of a troubled past abusing drugs and spending time in jail, referring to his past self jokingly as "a peacenik with an arsenal" before a solo take on "The Devil's Right Hand."

He introduced that song with a story about the time his son Justin found his loaded gun and how the experience almost instantly undid the approach to weaponry he was taught growing up. It was the first song Tuesday embellished by his playing of the harmonica and stories in that vein continued later as he picked up a twelve string acoustic guitar for "CCKMP (Cocaine Cannot Kill My Pain)."

"I grew up in Texas... and I didn't play football," joked Earle later. "I was that pain in the [behind] that took his guitar to every party he went to," he continued, noting an early nudge in the direction toward the pop stylings of Scottish singer Donovan while introducing "Sparkle and Shine."

Steve Earle has always been great about paying homage to the artists and mentors who made his songwriting possible, exposing a new audience to great songwriters flying under the radar.

In 2009 he celebrated the impact of late singer songwriter Townes Van Zandt on the album Townes. Next month, he continues that progression over the course of the sixteen songs that make up Guy, revisiting the vaunted song canon of Guy Clark, who passed away in 2016.

"I met Townes Van Zandt when I was 17 which gave me an intro to Guy when I got to Nashville," Earle explained, setting the stage for his take on Clark's "Desperados Waiting For a Train." "Guy showed me how to lay songs out on the page and told me songs aren't done until you play them for people."