Rodney Crowell: The Houston Kid

As a producer, songwriter, and performer, Rodney Crowell has been a staple of three decades of stellar country music, his experience in every corner of the genre ensuring that he won't be pigeonholed. In the early '70s, his associates included Texas iconoclasts Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. By the late '70s, he'd regularly toured with and written songs for Emmylou Harris. Throughout the '80s, his collaborations with then-wife Rosanne Cash earned him acclaim and fame. And in 1988, Crowell's reputation as a creative entity in his own right finally caught up with his reputation as a sideman and behind-the-scenes savant, with Diamonds & Dirt producing five number-one country hits and a Grammy. Newly remastered, Diamonds & Dirt still sounds pretty good, too, especially in light of the sort of unnatural, reverb-laden late-'80s production that makes everything go "poof." Crowell's songs transcend cheesy production, especially on memorable tracks such as "I Couldn't Leave You If I Tried," "After All This Time," a great cover of Harlan Howard's "Above And Beyond (The Call Of Love)," and "It's Such A Small World," a duet with Cash. The addition of three unreleased songs makes the new disc even more enticing, especially since Crowell admits they're as good as anything else on the album. The centerpiece of his superb new The Houston Kid, his first record in five years, is a duet with former father-in-law Johnny Cash on an audacious but somehow successful rewrite of "I Walk The Line." For Crowell, the song allows the circle to be completed, as The Houston Kid mostly centers on his rough childhood and early days as a musician, when his life was changed by hearing the elder Cash, among other legendary country musicians. The album's stripped-down sound, not all of it country, doesn't distract from the mostly autobiographical themes of "Telephone Road," "The Rock Of My Soul," "Wandering Boy," and other tales of innocence lost and regained, while Crowell sings with an assurance and sensitivity suited to the personal songs. An instant classic, The Houston Kid marks another notch in Crowell's crowded belt.