Steve Earle back for free bluegrass festival

“It’s very important to me that I’m one of the people that gets to go every year,” says Steve Earle, recounting his Hardly Strictly Bluegrass streak. “I’m very proud of that.”

Only missing the inaugural concert, he’s played every year since the late investment banker Warren Hellman founded the free festival in 2001 as a gift to San Francisco and an homage to bluegrass and nearly every other music genre you can fit into Golden Gate Park in three days. Hellman died in December 2011.

Every year, Earle flies in on a Thursday to do a radio show with KPFA’s Bonnie Simmons.

“Then on Fridays I used to go with Warren on KFOG every year and that’s a little weird going without him now,” he said. “And then I don’t leave the festival until Emmy (Emmylou Harris) sings.”

At 59, Earle is “touring as much as I ever have” while “supporting two households in New York.” He’s going through his seventh divorce, this time to singer Allison Moorer, father of his toddler son, John Henry.

In the early years, Earle lived hard to sing hard. That’s how his mentors Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark did it. Now the only thing that’s changed is the living. He’s been sober for more than two decades.

His latest album, “The Low Highway,” is a Woodie Guthrie-style road tour of the Great Recession. One character talks about “burning down the Wal-Mart,” another revisits the temptation of addiction in “Pocket Full of Rain.” Earle is recording a blues album later this month and he’s still working on a long-awaited memoir he hopes to finish by the end of the year.

Before Steve Earle and the Dukes play Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this weekend, he took a break after the sound check in Hartford, Connecticut to talk about fatherhood, writing songs on planes and WWWD.

Q: Take me back to when you first heard about the festival and Warren Hellman.

A: I didn’t know that much about Warren. I knew he had a lot of money. It was several years before I got to know Warren. I mean, he was basically a Republican when I met him, that’s how he had voted. But the first people he hired were Hazel Dickens and Emmylou (Harris) when he did the first festival. He once tried to hire Pete Seeger to give him banjo lessons, but Pete told him to (screw off). Warren was very proud of that story, used to tell it all the time.”

Q: I like the lyrics, “My money’s no good on the other side/Gonna lay my purse aside” in “Warren Hellman’s Banjo.” How did that song come together?

A: I wrote it on the plane, headed to the concert on the beach, the memorial for Warren. I started it that morning and I finished it on the plane and played it the next day at the memorial. The only other experience I’ve had like that was when I wrote “Pilgrim” and that was written for (late bass player) Roy Huskey Jr.’s funeral and I wrote it the morning of the funeral.

Q: Do you ever get the feeling Warren’s looking down and smiling?

A: Yeah, definitely. I just think the idea that it’s called Hellman Hollow, and hopefully it always will be - we all try to take care of it. We do ask ourselves, “What would Warren do? What would be OK with Warren and what wouldn’t?”

Q: Your son (Justin Townes Earle) is gonna be there. Do you guys run into each other at festivals or get to sit in with each other?

A: It hasn’t happened in awhile. I didn’t even get to see his set last year because I had to run to the Kate McGarrigle tribute. So I heard him as I was passing on a golf cart heading to the Rooster Stage. The year before last, he played one of the best sets I’ve ever seen and I saw the whole thing.

Q: How is fatherhood different this time around for you, at 59?

A: It’s a lot different. I was pretty present until Justin was 3, when his mom and I split up. It just so happened that I started touring way more around that time. But I was kind of Mr. Mom when Justin was little, because my wife worked a day job and I didn’t. But I’m way more present now. I don’t get high and all that.

Q: In the memoir you’re working on, is there anything that’s off limits?

A: Well, I don’t think you can do that and make art. There’s some stuff that’s not anybody else’s business, but it’s also not that interesting. The job is - people don’t care about the (stuff) that happened to you, unless it’s (stuff) they can relate to one way or another. That’s what the job is.”

Bay area freelancer John Beck writes about entertainment for The Press Democrat. You can reach him at 280-8014 or john@beckmediaproductions.com.