Stacey Earle now has bragging rights as a bona fide artist, thanks largely from a fan of her debut album.

That fan first relayed praise of Simple Gearle through Stacey's older brother, Steve Earle, though she initially took the praise with a grain of salt. As fate would have it, the fan turned out to be none other than Sheryl Crow.

"I had heard through the grapevine that (Sheryl) was a fan of that record," Stacey Earle, 39, says down the line from her Nashville home. "And I'd go, 'Yeah, right!' But Steve did one of the ban-landmines concerts with her. He came home ... and said, 'Hey, did you know Sheryl Crow's a big fan of Simple Gearle? She loves that record.' And I went, 'Well, I'll be damned. It's been confirmed.' "

Celebrity endorsement

While the celebrity endorsement was a wonderful gesture, Earle says that during the sessions for her sophomore album Dancin' With Them That Brung Me, it completely caught her off guard when Crow inquired about a vocal contribution to one of Earle's songs.

"Here I am driving down the interstate, I have a cellphone and the thing rings," explains Earle, who plays Barrymore's tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. "I pick up and the person on the other end of the line says, 'Hi, this is Sheryl Crow.' I almost ran off the road, saying, 'Whoa, hold on, hold on' as I was trying to find a place to stop."

Heartfelt

After a heartfelt conversation, Earle agreed to have Crow add harmonies, harmonium and piano to Kiss Her Goodnight, as a thank-you gesture. In fact, the whole Dancin' With Them That Brung Me disc -- featuring Earle's husband Mark Stuart on guitar and harmonies, Michael Webb on bass and Earle's son Kyle Mims on drums -- could be best described as a thank-you to those fans who bought her first record.

Another thank-you song, Promise You Anything, is actually a Steve Earle original dating back to his 1990 album, The Hard Way. The song marked Stacey's first-ever vocal appearance. She would eventually join Steve's band, The Dukes, and also take care of her brother -- not to mention two boys of her own -- during his drug addiction years in the early 1990s.

With those dark days long past, Stacey and Steve remain as close as ever. Yet Stacey's main pride and joy -- her own band, The Jewels -- help keep her spirits alive.

"I have fun with them," Earle says. "I always tell audiences, 'Give my Jewels a big hand!' And Mark, Kyle and Michael all fall off the back of the stage embarrassed everytime, whispering, 'Quit saying that!' "