Steve Earle’s solo performance at the 2005 Montreux Festival is a charismatic triumph. Armed with just an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, he performs tracks from across his career, with an emphasis on his later output, but also going right back to songs from his breakthrough album “Copperhead Road” from 1988. The songs are performed with his characteristic combination of honesty, outspoken views and self-deprecating humor. As he himself would freely admit, the Steve Earle who took the stage in July, 2005 for this Live at Montreux performance had, at age 50, experienced more than his share of ups (Guitar Town and other acclaimed recordings, many thousands of ardent fans), downs (serious drug addiction and the legal problems that came with it), and in-betweens (seven - count ‘em, seven - marriages). But one thing the Virginia-born singer-songwriter has never done is shy away from confronting his demons or voicing his opinions; Earle’s music has never lost its bite, and this hour-long solo gig, with 14 songs spanning much of his roughly 25-year career, is no exception. Like Bruce Springsteen, Earle avoids broadsided polemics in favor of personal stories. Thus his virulent opposition to the death penalty comes through in the voice of a corrections officer assigned to “Ellis Unit One,” Earle’s contribution to the Dead Man Walking soundtrack. His indictment of the “old guys with a lot of money” who start wars they know they’ll never have to serve in is expressed by an Irishman fighting for the Union in the Civil War (“Dixieland,” on which he trades in his acoustic guitar for a mandolin) or a poor kid with limited options who joins the Army to wage yet another “Rich Man’s War” (only on “Warrior,” another anti-war tune, does he come close to preaching: “Assail me not with noble policy, for I care not at all for platitude”). And he directly confronts his own dark side in songs like “Cocaine Cannot Kill My Pain.” Earle is a tough guy: coarse, gruff-voiced, unsentimental, profane, not exactly the life of the party (“Condi Condi,” his paean to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is about it when it comes to laughs). But there’s no denying the power of his music, and for those unfamiliar with him, Live at Montreux is a good place to start. Tracklisting: 1. Jerusalem; 2. What’’s a Simple Man to Do; 3. The Devil’s Right Hand; 4. Warrior; 5. Rich Man’s War; 6. South Nashville Blues; 7. CCKMP; 8. Dixieland; 9. Ellis Unit One; 10. Condi Condi; 11. The Mountain; 12. The Revolution Starts Now; 13. Copperhead Road; 14. Christmas in Washington.