TORONTO - Country-folk renegade Steve Earle has clearly gotten over the fact that the best-selling album of his 23-year-recording career, Townes, is a disc of songs written by another person.

In this case, that person is Earle's late mentor and good friend, fellow southern singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt, whose music the so-called "hardcore troubadour" beautifully conjured up on Saturday night at Massey Hall.

Taking the stage for his solo acoustic tour in support of Townes, which was released a few months back, Earle kicked off a nearly two-hour set with Van Zandt's Where I Lead Me and Colorado Girl, which would be followed by many stories about the famously troubled cult-hero, who died New Year's Day 1997 at age 59 after battling alcoholism, drug addiction and manic depression.

They first met in 1972 when Earle was just 17 years old.

"He was a migratory beast," said Earle of the always wandering Van Zandt, who was born in Texas but spent a lot of his life in Colorado and Tennessee.

The coolest thing Earle said he ever heard was the Van Zandt would ride his old horse Amigo from Aspen to Crested Butte every year until hard times forced him to give up the animal and the trip.

Many years Earle later re-enacted the journey in a January snowstorm and swore he saw the ghosts of Van Zandt and Amigo five times during the eight-and-a-half-hour trip.

Earle then launched into, Fort Worth Blues, which he wrote about Van Zandt after he died, following it up with Van Zandt's own Pancho And Lefty, the bluesy Brand New Companion, Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold, a song that finally got Van Zandt to stop heckling Earle during a performance at The Old Quarter in Houston, and Marie.

Earle talked about how Van Zandt, who was often homeless himself, would bring homeless people home to the people he was staying with.

"You'd wake up and there'd be some guy in your refrigerator and he wouldn't smell too good," joked Earle, who played various acoustic guitars and mandolins all night long.

But it wasn't all Van Zandt, all the time.

Earle, a master storyteller with a sharp sense of humor and well-known anti-war stance, also managed to sneak in more than a few of his better known songs, My Old Friend The Blues, Someday, I Ain't Ever Satisfied, Now She's Gone, Goodbye, City Of Immigrants, Jerusalem, The Devil's Right Hand, Summer Wages, Guitar Town, and Copperhead Road, while making observations about himself and the world along the way.

He said his local deli owner, Mr. Kim, in his adopted town of New York City, was his hero because he spoke not only Korean and English but had just learned Spanish at the age of 72.

And he said he was feeling optimistic about the U.S. for the first time in a long time due to the election of Democratic president Barack Obama although he planned on keeping an eye on him following through on his promises.

"If he doesn't get our troops out of Iraq, I'll be back on the streets," said Earle.

The singer-songwriter said he now found himself more worried about Canada due to its conservative government.

"Check your s--t," said Earle, sternly.