She may have a famous rebel brother named Steve, but Stacey Earle is just a Simple Gearle at heart.
Bringing her very rootsy, kinda folky and a little bit country style of music to Perfect Strangers tonight, Earle will be entering the capital for the second time in her life.
She first breezed through here in 1990 while on tour with her brother, a tour which took her by surprise and around the world.
"It was my first time on a stage. Ta-da! You're in an arena. It doesn't usually happen that way," says Earle in a grand example of understatement. "But it was good for me because I was never allowed to be afraid of the small stuff. It's really the best way to go, just throw yourself in the fire."
Just a year earlier, Earle was living in San Antonio, divorcing her husband, waiting tables and raising her two kids. When Steve asked her to look after his house in Nashville and take care of his kids while he went on tour, she readily accepted.
While roaming her brother's halls, she started banging away at some of the many guitars lying about the house. But unlike her brother, who began performing at 16, the young mother never even considered music as a career.
That was until Steve asked Stacey to sing back up on a song from his The Hard Way album and she nailed it in one take.
"He was kind of joking to me and he says, 'Well, you sang on the record so you have to go around the world and tour it.' Then I found out he wasn't joking."
Earle had three weeks to learn the rhythm guitar parts for her brother's four albums and by the time she returned from the world tour, she had caught the music bug.
She remained in Nashville and spent the next five years trying to land a publishing deal, most of it working on contract writing songs for other artists.
"I thought I could go in there and just write that perfect commercial country song. But I couldn't. Especially with what they're expecting to be country right now."
So she escaped from her writing contract and decided to go it alone.
"It's easy to get a record deal in Nashville," jokes Earle. "You wake up, look in the mirror and say, 'Hey Stacey, how 'bout a record deal.' Then you go down to the bank and make a record. And that's what I did."
She started Gearle Records, an independent label, to record her independent album Simple Gearle. And unlike the astronomical figures need to put together a Shania Twain or Dixie Chicks release, Earle spent $4,200 over 4 1/2 days, nailing each song in one take. Then she released it over the Internet.
Despite her brother's label E-Squared taking over distribution, Earle complains about the sheer amount of work. She has a cold and must answer about 100 e-mails because she's booking her own tour. Sometimes Earle wishes Calgon would just take her away, but she wouldn't trade this experience for anything.
"I'm 38 years old, my oldest child just got married and I got another one in high school. And this is kind of like my second life. This CD means everything to me."
