In 1995, after serving a sixty day sentence for heroin possession in Nashville’s Criminal Justice Center, Steve Earle walked out of jail and embarked upon one of the music industry’s most unexpected comebacks.

Despite carrying the baggage of a fizzled career, six failed marriages, a five year addiction to heroin and a beaten soul, Earle soon defied F. Scott Fitzgerald’s assertion that in life, there are no second acts. With the release of 1995’s Grammy nominated “Train-a-Commin,” followed in quick succession by two impressive follow-ups, ” I Feel Alright’ and “El Corazon,” Earle quickly went from lost cause to American icon.

With his latest release, “The Mountain” Earle returns to the music that first inspired him when he was a seven year-old boy watching Bill Monroe perform live at the Grand Old Opry: Kentucky Bluegrass. Teaming up with The Del McCoury Band, whom “Rolling Stone” recently called “the best bluegrass ensemble working,” Earle transcends his rock and roll image and once again proves that he’s no one-trick-pony.

Appropriately enough, bandleader Del McCoury is an alumnus of Bill Monroe’s legendary Bluegrass Boys. Although Earle replaces Monroe’s High Lonesome sound with his own gritty alternabilly vocals, the collaboration delivers plenty of traditional foot stompin’ high energy Kentucky sound. “The Mountain” serves as evidence that the music Monroe helped create is still an evolving genre that, like Earle, won’t be fading away anytime soon. These are all enchanting, beautifully orchestrated songs that will grow on listeners like a mountain dew.

“Harlan Man” with Rob McCoury’s incomparable banjo picking and Jason Carter’s smooth as silk fiddle, translates the rough and tumble life of an East Kentucky coal miner into pure blue collar poetry, and gives merit to a popular description of Earle as Bruce Springsteen if he were born in Texas. On “Pilgrim” Earle blends vocals with, among others, perhaps his most appropriate female counterpart, Emmylou Harris. This one’s beautiful, and Earle, as usual, isn’t shy about expressing some of the pain of those long lost years when he sings, “Ain’t no need to cry for me, boys/somewhere down the road you’ll understand.”

Unless you have been to hell and back, you will never truly understand Steve Earle. The best thing to do is sit back, tap your feet and let Earle and the Del McCoury Band take you on a musical journey down an East Kentucky road.