Cash comes up often in conversation; he remains Crowell's idol and friend long after Rodney divorced Johnny's little girl. Indeed, Cash shows up on The Houston Kid, on a song titled "I Walk the Line Revisited," lending his vocals to what is essentially a remake of his 1956 standard. Cash at first balked at the way Crowell changed his tune, but eventually came around; Rodney's still his kin, even at a distance. For the first time in his career, Crowell's made a record worthy of Cash's cameo: The Houston Kidrecalls the likes of Nick Lowe, Sam Phillips, even the Beatles every now and then ("Topsy Turvy" is awash in Rubber Soulpsychedelic pop). Crowell admits it was indeed his goal to be placed in such company. He has the awards, now he'd like a little respect.
"I had to get my own self-respect," he says. Suddenly, he breaks into a grin, and his eyes open a little wider. "I just had an epiphany. I think I needed to make The Houston Kidso that I could see myself with those artists I admire. That's a pretty vulnerable thing for me to say. That's why I needed to do this piece of work--so I could feel like I belonged in the class with Emmylou Harris and Tom Waits and your artists of integrity. Funny, there were a lot of people who already perceived me as being there, I guess, but I didn't. I did as a songwriter, but not as a recording artist."
Mark Graham
Rodney Crowell, walking down Amnesia Lane: The Houston Kid is the best album of Crowells 22-year-long recording career.
Caroline Greyshock
Crowell estimates that out of his 11 records, you might get two good ones...total.
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The Houston Kidis but a small part of that process: Two weeks ago, he was in Houston filming a documentary about his life that will accompany the release of the new album in February. He is also writing his memoirs, a task he'd like to complete before he begins working on his next album. When his mother died, he began writing prose for the first time and decided he had lived long enough and been through enough--playing with Emmylou Harris in her first Hot Band, being married to and divorced from Rosanne Cash, getting remarried to model-cum-country star Claudia Church, for starters--to begin penning his autobiography.
But, he insists, The Houston Kidis the heartrending side of his tale; the book will deal with the humor of age and experience. He waves off the notion that he's a man at a crossroads, looking back and vanquishing old ghosts before he can move forward. His story has been so often romanticized--more than one writer has told stories about how an 11-year-old Rodney played drums in his daddy's band, without ever mentioning how Rodney was terrified of the abusive J.W.--that Crowell would prefer it be told realistically from now on.
"Writing memoirs is not confronting old ghosts," he says, emphatically--and with a small grin. "I've lived long enough to where those old ghosts are funny. I've lived long enough to see how fucked-up we all are. I mean, I come from some crazy stock--people with a notion. They're people who say, 'I'm gonna drink half a case of Jax beer and get in my car and put it in low gear and see how fast I can drive it, and lesse what happens.' My Uncle Porter and Uncle Raymond would take down a telephone pole and walk away unharmed. On one hand, you can look at that and say those are old ghosts, or you can look at that and say those are crazy, funny sumbitches.
"My intention in writing the memoir is, I try to find the humor in it. To me, the humor is the beauty of where I've been, whereas the songs on The Houston Kid, because I write songs first, I sort of confronted the ghostly, edgy dysfunction, for lack of a better word. In writing the prose, it's about..." He pauses a moment. "My mother and father are dead, and it's far more important to paint the picture of the humor that was their lives--seventh-, eighth-grade-educated son and daughter of sharecroppers going to Houston without a clue of what to do and scratching out something out of all of that and doing it without a clue. In that cluelessness lies the humor, so it may be romanticizing it to think of it as confronting old ghosts, when it really is a joy."
