With the much anticipated new album GUY from Steve Earle & The Dukes, the band has released a new cover song from the upcoming album, covering Buddy Guy’s “Old Friends.” The cover features Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, who were also on the original song. Terry Allen and Jerry Jeff Walker are also featured on the track, delivering various spoken-word lines in the cover. “Old Friends” serves as the closing track of the record and Rolling Stones describes it as a solemn prayer. Listen to the cover song below.
GUY is set to be released March 29 and is a tribute album to the great Guy Clark. It will consist of 16 tracks and will be the band’s first new release in ten years, with their last being TOWNES, a tribute to his other songwriting mentor, Townes Van Zandt. “Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark were like Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to me,” Earle stated in a press release. He also discussed the making the album, finishing it in a week. GUY wasn’t really a hard record to make,” Earle says. “We did it fast, five or six days with almost no overdubbing. I wanted it to sound live…When you’ve got a catalog like Guy’s and you’re only doing sixteen tracks, you know each one is going to be strong.”