Country

In the early 1990s, Steve Earle faded from view, his left-wing politics too much for Nashville and his intake of stimulants dragging him down into a personal tragedy from which many feared he would never recover. Sense prevailed, however, and from the mid-1990s onwards, Earle (above, second from left) pulled himself out of commercial and critical disaster into a position of undoubted strength. His most recent album, The Mountain, teams him up with the Del McCoury Band, perhaps the most celebrated bluegrass outfit in the world. The result is a match made in Country music heaven. Their gigs - at the Cork Opera House today and Dublin's Olympia tomorrow - are likely to be among the best this year.