Stacey Earle


Stacey Earle is an American singer-songwriter. The sister of alt-country singer Steve Earle, she has recorded six albums, including four with her husband, musician Mark Stuart.

Early life

Earle was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She first taught herself to play a ukulele and then began playing a gut string guitar, left behind by her musician brother, Steve Earle. She was given her own guitar as a Christmas present when she was 16 years old, but became a mother at 17 and played and sang at home, developing her own style of finger picking.

Career

When she was 29 years old, Earle moved to Nashville to live with her brother Steve, and sang backing vocals and played rhythm guitar on his 1991 album The Hard Way, and for the subsequent world tour. She appeared on her brother's subsequent albums: Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator and Transcendental Blues.
After returning from tour, she wrote songs and performed them at writer's nights in Nashville. Later, she set up her own songwriters' night to get some more time on stage. During this time, she met fellow guitarist and singer Mark Stuart who became her partner in running the events and then later became her second husband.
Earle signed a contract with Nashville's Ten Ten Music Group as a staff songwriter and received notice for her song "For Years", which appeared on Sammy Kershaw's 1996 CD Politics, Religion and Her.
In 1998 she released the album Simple Gearle which later appeared on The New York Times "Favorite CD's You Nearly Missed" list. Reviewer Jon Pareles stated: "On an album completed in four days, Stacey Earle's songs came out homespun and pristine. She examines marriage, divorce and starting over in quiet, folky vignettes full of tears and determination."
She has appeared at festivals, clubs and private homes performing up to 170 concerts a year.

Personal life

She married Michael Mimms when she was 17, and they had two sons before the marriage ended in divorce in 1990. She met her current husband Mark Stuart in 1991, and married him in 1993. They were both members of her brother's band, Steve Earle and the Dukes, as well as her own band, the Jewels. She is the aunt of Justin Townes Earle, Ian Dublin Earle and John Henry Earle.

Discography

Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart