Steve Earle Tours With Sister, Preps Book

January 26, 2001 -- It's been more than 10 years since Steve Earle and his sister Stacey hit the road together — and back then she was part of his band and was also charged with riding herd on the then-drug-addled troubadour. Now she's a solo artist in her own right, with two highly acclaimed albums to her credit, and fully enjoying the experience of touring again with her cleaned-up and sober sibling.

The two are playing tonight in Philadelphia and will hit theaters in the Midwest and Canada throughout February.

"This is a special thing," Stacey says of the tour, which began Jan. 18. "Back in 1990, he was very ill, at the very peak of drug addiction. We always say we drug each other around the world; he drug me around — it was my first time on the road — and I drug him because he had to have someone to drag him. I look at this as a time to go on tour with someone and get to know him again, because there was only one Steve we knew for many years, and we loved him no matter what. Now this is like touring with a whole other person."

And a very busy person at that. While he's on the road, Steve Earle is looking over the proofs for Dog House Roses, his forthcoming collection of 11 short stories (one of which, "Taneytown," is also a song on his 1997 El Corazon LP).

He's also planning for the first season of his Broadaxe theater company in Nashville and putting the finishing touches on Carla, his play about the controversial executed Texas prisoner Carla Faye Tucker. He's also submitted a "big, huge" new song titled "Shadowland" for Meat Loaf, and he's been talking with Sheryl Crow about some collaboration, as well.

But he says we shouldn't be holding our breath for the follow-up to his latest release, last year's Transcendental Blues. "All I've written since I finished Transcendental Blues is three or four things for specific projects," he says. "I'm intentionally not writing for another record until I finish [Carla]; I know that won't hold up, but I do want to breathe before the next record. I released a record every 12 months for five years, so there's going to be more than 12 months between [Transcendental Blues] and the next one."