By Brian D'Ambrosio
Solemn and solitary, and stubbornly practical, Rodney Crowell never overthinks his next move.
The 66-year-old Texan, who has released close to 20 albums in the past four decades, has never felt as if he has had the weight of the past carried on his shoulders; he's always got new worlds in front on his mind.
"I idea of looking back doesn't seem like a luxury to me," said Crowell, from Nashville, where he is putting the final buff on a new album. "But looking back seems like a capitulation. The proverbial carrot is never behind you, but it's always out in front. For me, my career has never been about what I've done. But it's been about becoming, achieving and pushing myself further. To take a line from Bob Dylan, 'Some day when I paint my masterpiece.' I hope to paint it a couple of days before I check out of here.
"Some fans have had some frustration, because I've refused to play hit songs. But it's something I've been insisting, and I figure if I can't hold your attention with what I'm creating now then I deserve to lose your attention. I've softened that a bit. Oldies acts are something I've always seen in a negative context and I've purposefully striven to create new work and be vital at that moment."
Photo courtesy Rodney Crowell
Crowell's earliest work clutched to and explained away a series of existential crises; indeed, he's built a brand as an extension of his psyche. He grew up in East Texas and Houston in the 1950s, frequently shielding his mother from his father's violent outbursts, a topic he addresses in several songs. His mother and father were both raised on sharecropper farms in Southern states. James Walter Crowell, who, Rodney said, fought hard to keep darkness at bay, played guitar and drank at local roadhouses. His mother, Addie, often worshipped at a Pentecostal church; she was prone to dropping on the ground as if shot from a pistol, rolling over, and speaking in tongues. Though it startled him, he saw it as "great drama" and "real passion."
Crowell's music was never designed to dazzle. Music provided an escapist coping mechanism and, perhaps most importantly, the opportunity to avoid being formed by that same violence.
In 1972, he left Lone Star State and settled in the Nashville, where he met one of the bedrocks of the songwriting scene, Guy Clark. The Texas songwriter offered his own window on the world, letting loose with a plethora of gratis advice about the merger of melody and composition, as well as a steady supply of booze and several books of Dylan Thomas' poems. (Thomas' work, too, had a profound effect on Crowell, making him think about the juxtaposition of art, creativity and legacy.)
Crowell still deferentially bows his head to the legends who've come before.
"Guy Clark (who died May 17, 2016) was everybody's mentor," said Crowell. "I first met him after I was at a pub and I ran into some circus performers and they sent me to find this man named Guy Clark. They said that he's the curator (of the Nashville music scene) and I knew of him from him playing at Sand Mountain Coffeehouse in Houston. Couple of days later, I ran into him. We'd play songs, have conversations well into the night, and play more songs. Then we'd have conversations about songs."
Crowell finds his well being in the act of constantly building something that stirs or saddens people through his musicianship, and somehow he always comes up with a mischievous, singular tweak.
"So much of inspiration comes from collaboration with other musicians. I'm working on a new album, with one song to finish and it comes out early next year. I worked with and collaborated with musicians I haven't worked with before. First sensibilities will change my sensibilities - and the bar gets raised. Collaboration allows me to challenge myself to find a new passion for music.
"I'm more passionate now than I was in my 20s. I'm more passionate now than I was as a teenager or in my early to late 20s, and this time in my life I listen with more passion than I ever did then. It's more important to me. Maybe because I have less time and I pay closer attention to what's there and why it's there. Invariably, collaboration leads to new forms of self-expression and to the things that move you."
Perhaps it's only natural that Crowell finds a comfort in Montana that is more social than aesthetic; in fact, the lead verse of "The Long Journey Home," the opening track of "Tarpaper Sky (2014)," starts this way, "We ran off chasing rainbows beneath the blue Montana sky."
"I do enjoy Montana, especially in the wintertime," said Crowell. "I think in the wintertime, you see the value of conversation, and after you've spent a full day writing, then in the evening you go looking for friends for conversation. The solitary existence during the day and seeking conversation and society at night - that to me that is a part of the Montana wintertime culture."
Crowell - who has been the recipient of about every award in country music you could think of - said that tuneful sounds or lyrical vignettes are always jostling for space or favor in his brain.
"So many times people ask me, 'Do you have a hobby?' Work is my hobby. Though, in recent years, I've taken to horticulture and I have a garden area - vegetable and flower garden. I'm planting some exotic trees. When I dig weeds and plant sage, I most often think about songs and I think about art. When I exercise I do it with a set of headphones on. Music is never far away. I've trained myself to magnetize the inspiration and set up a fresh wave of inspiration. Gardening tends to do that for me.
"I've found a small admiration for people who have five or six hit songs and then play them forever, and play them happily. That just doesn't work for me. I'm going to push myself and never rely on what I've done in the past. Failures are there. Along the way I've failed and the failures have most always been what I've learned from most. They've left me with a clear idea and re-energized at what I've failed at. I'm not one to play the past over and over with great satisfaction, because there is no risk of failure. It's a self-protective way to do things and I can't conjure that mindset. Thick skin would be the enemy of discovery."
Indeed, no matter what compels Crowell, the fountainhead of ingenuity gurgles deep from within, and he knows how to bottle it with the fleeting grace of art. The particularly stunning "Oh What A Beautiful World," another track off of "Tarpaper Sky," he brings his usual craggy gravity to plainspoken, yet elegant lines such as, "It's the rise and the fall of the clocks on the wall."
"It's forever now and forever now," said Crowell. "I think about how much longer do I have now? I turned 66 a few days ago, and I wonder just how much is my 'now' going to be. How much longer do I want it to be? It's right now, and right now just left - and it's to be replaced by another right now. It's a paradox, isn't it?"
Brian A. D'Ambrosio lives in Helena, Montana. He is currently at work on a compilation of interviews with American singer-songwriters called "Troubadour Truths," which can be followed here.