SHAWN Colvin and Steve Earle first met 30 years ago, when Earle “was off everybody’s radar including my own”.

His hell-raising days now behind him, he has teamed up with Colvin – hoping to match, and possibly emulate, those lovely duets of his with ex-wife Alison Moorer and Emmylou Harris.

While Colvin & Earle cannot reach the celestial heights of Goodbye, where Emmylou’s angelic voice memorably wraps itself around Earle’s throaty drawl, it has some magic moments, notably the achingly beautiful The Way That We Do and the self-lacerating You’re Right (I’m Wrong).

There’s also an inspired cover of You Were On My Mind, recorded by Crispin St Peters in 1966, and a faithful rendering of Emmylou's Raise The Dead.

Other covers, Ruby Tuesday and Tobacco Road, are less successful, but that shouldn’t detract from a hugely enjoyable album, which see the restless Earle more at ease with himself and the world, since his fury at the Iraq war and his break-up with Moorer. Like Neil Young, Earle continues to confound and inspire. Long may he run.