In his show-ending version of the Rolling Stones' "Before They Make Me Run," Steve Earle mumble-sang, "Gonna find my way to heaven, `cause I did my time in hell."

        The lyrics are Keith Richards', but Mr. Earle might as well own the copyright. The singer-songwriter has lived through hell on earth, and by all accounts these are the better days of his personal life.

        Four years ago Mr. Earle, not far removed from heroin addiction and a stint in prison, played to a half-capacity crowd at Bogart's. Friday the crowd was a sellout, and those with the stamina to stand shoulder-to-shoulder through slow-to-mid-tempo rock participated in a 2-hour-20-minute slur-along with the night's star.

        Without dabbling too heavily in the commodity of rock mythology, it seems Mr. Earle's music gets softer as time distances him from the poisoned past. The best songs in the show were from the drugging days: "Someday" and "My Old Friend the Blues" and "Fearless Heart" and the title cut from Guitar Town, his best album from way back in 1986. Add to the list other '80s tunes like "I Ain't Never Satisfied," "The Devil's Right Hand," and "Copperhead Road."

        Nobody's recommending he pick up the needle again. Songs performed from the sober '90s, like "N.Y.C.," "Telephone Road," "Hard-Core Troubadour" and "More Than I Can Do" were nearly as good as the '80s stuff. Perhaps the decline can be attributed to aging, an evil that has done in more rockers than drugs.

        Of course, at least half the crowd, the half that wasn't present four years ago, would disagree. They seemed to enjoy the poppy, country-rock sheen that marks Mr. Earle's new material. And with his three-man backing band the Dukes co-conspiring, Mr. Earle reshaped the hard-country material from Guitar Town and the hard-rock edge of "Copperhead Road" and such into his pop sound of today.

        What's more, his covers of the Stones, Nirvana's "Breed," and the Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today" all failed to blast off like the originals.

        Even his 'tween-tune tales held less power. It's all right for him to rip the death penalty as he did, and as any number of his folkie lessors have done. But, as far as crime-and-punishment messages go, it doesn't have the chilling effects of the real-life jailbird stories he told last time around.

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