The first time I saw Justin Townes Earle was on stage at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. He was opening for Gillian Welch. He was rail thin, in a crew cut and tailored suit, with a big bow tie and heavily tatted hands. He picked notes, played hard chords fast, and slapped his small guitar’s strings percussively while he jerked in a stilted, inspired manner, belting out traditional hymns, classic blues numbers, and originals that sounded like classics. He had patter like a circus caller and he referred to a heckler as “sonny boy.” He’d just moved to New York from his native Nashville, where he was born 26 years before to country legend Steve Earle and named after Townes Van Zandt, America’s greatest and most-troubled songwriter (after Hank Williams). He’d soon release Harlem River Blues, a critically-praised album he couldn’t enjoy the fruits of because he’d fallen into heavy cocaine and alcohol use. (I saw him play during this time; it was not a good show.)  But he was soon sober again, and working on Nothing’s Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now, a soul record he cut in four days with a full band. We talked minutes after a show in Savannah, with his crowd’s roar still in the background.

—Cole Louison

THE BELIEVER: Most people can see the link between the country and folk world you were born into, and the worlds of punk, blues, and rock ’n’ roll that you’ve been a part of—but where and when did your soul influence come from?

JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE: It came along very young. I mean, I grew up in a very racially mixed neighborhood. You know, I had a lot of black friends growing up, and I would go to their houses for dinner and their parents listened to Al Green and Sam and Dave, and you know, it was the 1980s so, you know, there was the occasional white younger parents that were listening to soul.  I mean, I’m definitely more of a Memphis soul fan, and I love MoTown, but if I had to take Stax or Motown, I’d pick Stax. You know?

BLVR: Was doing a project like this on your radar for a while?

JTE: Oh, it definitely had been on my radar for a while. I’ve always thought my records should be records. You know, I don’t just, like, write a group of songs and see if they fit together. I actually just write a few songs like this for this style of production. And so, I think, once again, what I was running into was a monetary issue that kept me from recording...