What Is Steve Earle's Net Worth?
Steve Earle is an American musician, producer, actor, and author who has a net worth of $2.5 million. Steve Earle is an American country, rock, and folk singer-songwriter who has released over 20 studio albums since his 1986 debut album, "Guitar Town." He has won multiple Grammy Awards, and his songs have been recorded by other artists like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Levon Helm, The Highwaymen, Travis Tritt, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, and Emmylou Harris, among others. Earle's music has been featured in dozens of movies and TV shows, including "The Beverly Hillbillies," "The Rookie," "The Wire," "Brokeback Mountain," "Talladega Nights," "Friday Night Lights," and "P.S. I Love You." Steve also periodically acts. He had a memorable role on "The Wire" as a recovering heroin addict counselor. Steve has struggled with addiction in real life.
Early Life
Steve Earle was born Stephen Fain Earle on January 17, 1955, in Ft. Monroe, Virginia. His father was stationed there as an air traffic controller. Before Earle turned two, the family moved to San Antonio, Texas, where he grew up. He began learning guitar at the age of 11 and entered a school talent show at the age of 13. When he was 14, Steve ran away from home to search for his idol, singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. He eventually dropped out of school at the age of 16 and then moved to Houston. He narrowly avoided being drafted into the Vietnam War due to the end of the Selective Service Act and draft lottery in 1973, but developed strong anti-war political opinions around this time as several of his friends were drafted.
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Career
In 1974, at the age of 19, Earle moved to Nashville and began working various blue-collar jobs during the day and playing music at night. It was during this period that Steve wrote songs and played bass guitar in Guy Clark's band and sang on Clark's 1975 album "Old No. 1." He also appeared in the 1976 film "Heartworn Highways," a documentary on the Nashville music scene, which included David Allan Coe, Guy Clark, Townes van Zandt, and Rodney Crowell. Steve stayed in Nashville for a few more years before returning to Texas and starting a band called The Dukes.
In the 1980s, Earle returned to Nashville again to work as a songwriter. One of the songs he co-wrote, "When You Fall in Love," was recorded by Johnny Lee and reached #14 on the country charts in 1982. Carl Perkins recorded Earle's song "Mustang Wine," and a number of other notable artists recorded songs he wrote. At the same time, he was working on his own music.
In 1982, Earle released an EP called "Pink & Black," which featured his band, The Dukes. Steve's manager sent the EP to Epic Records and they signed Earle to a recording contract in 1983. The same year, Steve signed a record deal with CBS and recorded a "neo-rockabilly album." After a few years, Earle signed a seven-record deal with MCA Records and released his first full-length album, "Guitar Town," on MCA Records in 1986. The title track became a Top Ten hit in 1987. That year, he released a compilation of his earlier recordings called "Early Tracks" and an album with The Dukes called "Exit 0," which received critical acclaim.
In 1988, Steve released the album "Copperhead Road." The album's title track focuses on a Vietnam veteran who uses his family's background in running moonshine to become a marijuana grower and seller. The song became Earle's highest-peaking song to date in the United States and has sold over a million copies since its release. In 1990, he released an album called "The Hard Way," which had a strong rock sound. He followed the album up with a live album in 1991 called "Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator." He then took a recording hiatus until releasing "Train a Comin'," which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1996. The same year, he formed his own record label, E-Squared Records, and released the album "I Feel Alright." In 1997, Steve released "El Corazon," which received positive reviews. He made a foray into bluegrass with the album "The Mountain in 1999" and then recorded the album "Transcendental Blues" in 2000, which features the song "Galway Girl."
In 2002, Earle released the album "Jerusalem," which expressed his anti-war, anti-death penalty views. The next year, he released the live album "Just an American Boy." In 2004, he released the album "The Revolution Starts Now," a collection of songs influenced by the Iraq War. It won a Grammy Award for best contemporary folk album. He again won a Grammy for his tribute album "Townes," which contained 15 songs written by Townes Van Zandt.
In addition to his music career, Earle has appeared in film and television, most notably as a recurring character in the shows "The Wire" and "Treme." He has also written a novel, a play, and a book of short stories.
(Photo by Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Personal Life
Earle has been married seven times throughout his life, including twice to the same woman. He married Sandra Henderson in Houston at the age of 18 but then left her to move to Nashville a year later. There, he met and married his second wife, Cynthia Dunn. After divorcing Dunn, he married his third wife, Carol-Ann Hunter, with whom he had a son, Justin Townes Earle. His son died in 2020 of an accidental drug overdose from fentanyl-laced cocaine. He had a second son with his fourth wife, Lou-Anne Gill, in 1987. The same year, he had a daughter with a groupie named Theresa Baker, though they did not marry. Steve later married his fifth wife, Teresa Ensenat. They divorced before he remarried his fourth wife, Lou-Anne Gill. Finally, he married his seventh wife in 2005, Allison Moorer, with whom he had a third son, John Henry Earle, in April 2010. The couple separated in 2014.
Earle has struggled with drug addiction throughout his life, particularly heroin and cocaine. He has attended a number of treatment programs and has written about his experience with drugs in his songwriting. Steve is also very outspoken with his political views and often addresses them in his lyrics. He identifies as a socialist and tends to vote for Democratic candidates.
