Steve Earle / The Du THE HARD WAY (LP) 02/04/14 Allen Sloan (electric violin

Allen Sloan (electric violin

They surround her finest -- and easily most expressive -- vocal on the album

as he died the same year it was issued

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Steve Earle / The Du THE HARD WAY (LP) 02/04/14 Allen Sloan (electric violin"I defend The Hard Way to the death, because I almost died in the process of making it," Steve Earle told a reporter in 2000, and he wasn't just being melodramatic. Earle's well documented addiction to heroin and cocaine was spiraling out of control in 1990 while he was holed up in Memphis recording The Hard Way. And while his 1988 album Copperhead Road showed him moving away from country and more toward hard rock and earned him a minor crossover hit