Now that Steve Earle‘s career has entered its fourth decade, it’s not particularly defensible to keep calling him a country-­music maverick. In the mid-90s, after recovering from a disastrous drug habit, he began carving out his own niche of the periphery of Nashville, a bad boy learning to coexist with the industry. He’s stayed loyal to the honky-tonk, hard rock, bluegrass, and Dylan-esque folk-rock of his youth, reshuffling those sounds into different combinations with each new project; though his music won’t surprise you, it continues to satisfy. Earle has a new studio album called Terraplane on the way, cut with his superb band the Dukes (it’s due from New West on Tue 2/17), but for this week’s four-night stand at City Winery, he’s playing solo—armed with only his scratchy, twangy voice and an acoustic guitar, he’ll tap into the Texas-­troubadour tradition of his early heroes (and eventual colleagues) Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

Steve Earle: Cool!

You’ve had the Dukes for quite a while.

I turned 60 last Saturday [January 17], and I’ve seen songwriters stop writing as early as their 40s. I’m very vigilant about trying to find a reason to write. Moving to New York was partially—I felt like I needed the shot in the arm. It’s harder to stagnate in New York. They used to think sharks didn’t sleep, because their gills don’t intake water—they have to be moving all the time to breathe. But they figured out that what they do is they go park someplace where there’s a stream that moves water through their gills and they sleep there. New York’s kind of like that. So if I ever get too old to travel, I’ll feel safe in New York because there’ll still be input.

Sure. I went off last night. It was Martin Luther King’s birthday.

I do this camp now [Camp Copperhead]. Teaching’s important to me; I think it’s a 12-step thing. There’s a thing in 12-step programs, which are sort of the center of my life to this day—I still go to meetings and call my sponsor and all that stuff. The maxim in 12-step programs is that you only keep it by giving it away. The stupidest thing ever said in the English language was “Those that do, do; those that can’t, teach.” Teaching’s really important. Seamus Heaney taught. Michael Longley still teaches. Teaching’s a really important part of learning. If I feel a responsibility to teach and to pass things along, then I have to stay plugged in.

Sun 2/1 through Wed 2/4, 8 PM City Winery $45 Sun 2/1 sold out All-ages