Steve Earle / Townes Van Zandt / Guy Clark – Together At The Bluebird Cafe

The suspicion lingers that somewhere in Nashville — a front porch, a living room, a converted garage with a well-stocked refrigerator — the best songwriters sit and trade works-in-progress late into the night, and magic happens. Well, some of ’em do hang out together, and sometimes there are rumors of spectacular picking parties. But mostly songwriting sounds about as much fun as watching your neighbor rebuild his engine: terrific sport, if you can help.

Despite its reputation, the Bluebird is a relatively unassuming club in a prosperous strip mall. Its staple is the re-creation of that imagined event, the songwriter’s circle. The latest in their live series features three old running mates from Texas — Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, and Guy Clark — who took the stage September 13, 1995, in a benefit for the Interfaith Dental Clinic.

Turns out Townes needed the clinic’s services, though it was Susanna Clark who put the show together. His story, which I won’t ruin by retelling here — all of their stories, in fact — are the real pleasures of this live document. The songs, like their singers, are old friends now, and hold few surprises.

Nothing wrong with that, for there’s a nice spirit to the set, and a kind of balance. Townes would be dead a year and a half later, and a year and a half before, Earle’s career had been presumed dead. As a result, Townes’ vocals aren’t spectacular, but there’s plenty of life to his patter. Earle still has the irrepressible urgency that marked his post-jail performances, and Clark is the gifted, reliable craftsman he has long been.

No, these are old friends, for whom the reunion onstage and the memories it stirs is at least as important as the audience. And so these are warm, slightly imperfect versions of their best songs (“Tecumseh Valley”, “Randall Knife”, “Valentine’s Day”), rendered with the competitive informality of a living room. Sounds like fun. Bet the after-party was amazing.