By Bill Forman
Last Word Features

Two weeks before embarking on last year’s “50 years of Songs and Stories” tour, Steve Earle was performing at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. After finishing a song, country star Vince Gill unexpectedly walked on stage and presented Earle with a Grand Ole Opry 100th anniversary guitar strap.

It was a nice surprise, to be sure, but nothing compared with what came next.

Gill began to walk away, while Earle put the strap to his guitar and stepped up to the mic. It was at that moment that Gill stopped, turned to Earle, and told him that the commemorative strap was made to be worn only by Hall of Fame inductees, and that Steve Earle had now joined those ranks.

“It was one of the biggest moments of my life,” Earle said. “It had been a long time coming.

“They would not let me near their place for years,” recalled the veteran singer-songwriter, who along with his contemporaries such as Dwight Yoakam, Maria McKee and Dave Alvin, played a pivotal role in taking country music in new directions — in Earle’s case, a rocking sound that didn’t sit well with the mainstream country establishment.

Earle will bring that sound to Colorado Springs on Friday for a 7:30 p.m. show with special guest Channing Wilson at Phil Long Music Hall at Bourbon Brothers. Tickets start at $60 at phillongmusichall.com.

After growing up in Texas, Earle had been living in Nashville for more than a decade before releasing his 1986 debut album “Guitar Town” and its 1987 follow up “Exit O.”

“I was just trying to make credible country records,” he said of the two albums, which earned considerable praise from critics. But not everyone at his label shared that enthusiasm.

“And then, of course, ‘Copperhead Road’ sealed the deal,” Earle said of his 1988 rock-leaning breakthrough album whose title song crossed over in a big way but generated a backlash from the mainstream country industry.

Over the years, as Earle has continued to release albums and tour extensively, that situation has changed.

“It was never played on country radio back then, but it is now,” he said of “Copperhead Road.”