Music: Sweethearts of the road

After seven failed attempts, Steve Earle might have finally found a way to make marriage work: He brought his new wife on the road with him.

The alt-country hero and outspoken radical married fellow singer/songwriter Allison Moorer in 2005, after she toured with him as an opener. The couple now share the stage and essentially everything else on a tour that lands Sunday at the Pantages Theatre in Minneapolis.

Beyond the practicality of pairing their careers and lives, "Having me on the bill brings some younger girls out to the shows who wouldn't otherwise go see him, so he's happy about that," quipped Moorer. "His audiences look a little better now."

Marrying Moorer had a brightening effect on Earle's music, too. After two politically steaming records, the singer took a relatively lighter approach on his latest, "Washington Square Serenade," which won him another Grammy for best contemporary folk album last month. As he described the record, "It's largely love songs for Allison Moorer and New York City."

Earle, 53, and Moorer, 35, moved into a Greenwich Village apartment soon after their wedding. They live in the heart of the '60s folk scene on Jones Street, where Bob Dylan posed with girlfriend Suze Rotolo for the cover of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan."

"I can't tell you how many times I've turned German tourists around and pointed them in the right direction to reenact that cover," he said.

Earle paints a picture of their life in the new album's first track, "Tennessee Blues," when he sings, "Cross the mighty Hudson River to the New York City side/ Redhead by my side, boys, sweetest thing I've found/ Goodbye guitar town" -- a reference to his old home in Nashville and the debut album that put him on the map 21 years ago.

"I was at a point where I thought I was going to be single for the rest of my life. Part of the problem before was I always wanted to be in a relationship a little bit too badly. I'd force the issue. In this case, it wasn't anything either of us was looking for. It was just kind of undeniable."

Before marrying Earle (her second husband), Moorer had built up her own sturdy fan base and critical acclaim with five albums of modern, folky but fiery country music. Her latest, "Mockingbird," is a covers album featuring songs by other female artists, including Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell, Gillian Welch, Patti Smith and Moorer's big sister, Shelby Lynne.

One of the most interesting tracks is a remake of Cat Power's "Where Is My Love." Said Moorer, "I'm a big fan of [Cat Power] and how she works in what I consider a really traditional blues form but with her own twist."

Is the fact that both she and Earle are artists and road hounds the ingredient that was missing from his other marriages?

"That might be a part of it," Earle acknowledged, "but probably a bigger thing is the fact that I'm not an alcoholic or a heroin addict anymore."