Steve Earle on "Local Memory"

Singer-songwriter Steve Earle was a longhaired, seventeen-year-old San Antonio kid when he first heard “Local Memory,” a deep cut off 1973’s Shotgun Willie. He calls it the song that first taught him that a country lyric could read like literature. Steve goes on to describe the very real tension that still existed between hippies and rednecks when Willie played outside Austin in the early 70’s, and Willie's wonderfully off-color nickname for him.