Rodney Crowell on ‘Texas’ • Live Songs and Interview, 2019
Interviews • 1h 3m
During this special program, Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and author Rodney Crowell sits down with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Peter Cooper to discuss and perform selections from his album “Texas.”
“Surely I’ve told everything I have to say about Texas and about my upbringing,” Crowell says, thinking back on a lifetime of creative output. But in developing his 2019 album, he says, “I was most interested in trying to somehow conjure up something of a landscape painting, if I could, with the songs.”
Crowell recalls the album’s evolution, from its beginnings as a couple of unrelated songs through to collaborations falling into place (with Lyle Lovett, Billy Gibbons, Ringo Starr, and Steve Earle), lyrical themes emerging, and a realization (between Crowell and producer Ray Kennedy) that a cohesive set of songs exploring Crowell’s birthplace was coming together.
The songwriter describes growing up in the Third Ward of East Houston in the 1950s, around roughneck sailors and oilfield workers, then coming to Nashville, where he worked as a dishwasher until late at night, coming home to join his roommates “Skinny” Dennis Sanchez and Richard Dobson, who’d be trading songs with Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and Robin and Linda Williams until dawn.
In the second half of the program, Crowell’s band joins him on stage to play a set of songs from “Texas” (“Flatland Hillbillies,” “Deep in the Heart of Uncertain Texas,” “56 Fury”), along with some of his most beloved tunes (“Earthbound,” “Still Learning How To Fly,” “Reckless,” “Say You Love Me,” “It Ain’t Over Yet”).
Presented in partnership with the Americana Music Association and recorded for later broadcast on SiriusXM Outlaw Country, in support of the exhibition "Outlaws & Armadillos: Country’s Roaring ’70s."
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