Musical artist Rodney Crowell realized long ago that rather than become a star, he wanted to become exactly what the first two words of the sentence denote: a musical artist. After his 1988 album “Diamonds and Dirt”garnered him 5 consecutive #1 hit songs on the country music charts, an inevitable crash was almost certain to happen. And it sort of did but for Crowell, it was really more of a pivot to becoming the artist he always wanted to be.
If you’re unfamiliar with Crowell, his background and bonafide’s almost seemed charmed. The Houston, TX, native was discovered by the late, great Jerry Reed after he moved to Nashville, TN to try to become a songwriter. From there, the late and great Guy Clark took him under his wing as both a friend and a mentor. In James Szalapski’s fantastic 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways, one can spy a young Crowell at a table filled with empty booze bottles trading songs with Clark and a similarly young Steve Earle.
From there, Crowell joined Emmylou Harris’s band and went on to marry Roseanne Cash, daughter of one Johnny Cash. Throughout all of this time, he was making his own music to some success but really making it as a songwriter’s songwriter selling songs which became hits to people like Bob Seger, The Oak Ridge Boys and Waylin Jennings…