Rodney Crowell Draws Inspiration from Collaborators on Upcoming Album
Rodney Crowell has been on of the most inspiring and influential characters in the history of country music in a career that now spans well over 50 years. From a side player, to a songwriter, to a producer, to a #1 song performer, to a founder of Americana, Crowell has just about done it all, and in transformational ways, even if many of those efforts ended up being in secondary roles, or under-the-radar.
At 74 years old, Crowell is still refusing to pack it in, and still has plenty to say. And for his upcoming album Airline Highway taking flight August 29th via New West Records, he’s getting a lot of lift from the collaborators who appear with him on the project.
“This record is a document of me falling in love with these musicians,” says Crowell. “That’s one of the great perks of this job—falling in love with the people you’re playing with. And we caught that on tape.”
Those musicians include Ashley McBryde, who appears on the album’s debut track “Taking Flight” that she also co-wrote, Lukas Nelson on “Rainy Days in California” he also co-wrote with Crowell, Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr who sings on “Heaven Can You Help,” while Rebecca and Megan Lovell from Larkin Poe contribute harmonies and slide guitar throughout the record.
Another contributor Crowell was excited to collaborate with was guitarist Tyler Bryant from the band The Shakedown who also plays on the album and acts as producer. After working on demos and such in Crowell’s own studio as well as Bryant’s, they settled into the Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana to record the album proper. They felt the location gave the record the swampy attitude they were looking for.
“It’s got a great vibe, and the band all lived under the same roof. The beautiful Vermilion River is nearby. We thought with any luck we’d get eaten by alligators,” Crowell says. “There’s a romance to the swamp, the semi-tropical climate. We put it to good use, even if it was just me romanticizing my connection to Louisiana.”
Rodney Crowell grew up in the Houston, TX area, and would head over the Louisiana border for music and underage drinking in his formative years. This would lead to his lifelong passion for music that resulted in Rodney’s name being attributed to fifteen #1 songs—five in a row as a performer himself, along with tracks from folks like Waylon Jennings, George Strait, and even more contemporary performers like Tim McGraw and Keith Urban.
Willie Nelson has also always been a Crowell fan, and recently released the album Oh What A Beautiful World as a Rodney Crowell tribute.
“At a basic level there are a lot more years behind me than there are ahead of me,” Crowell admits. “I’m up in my seventieth decade of my life, and I’m glad that I’m still looking forward to certain things I want to do. My ambition isn’t to be a household name anymore. My ambition is to be satisfied with the work that I do. I’m at a place where it really is about having fun.”
Airline Highway is now available for pre-order/pre-save.
TRACK LIST:
1. Rainy Days In California (Feat. Lukas Nelson)
2. Louisiana Sunshine Feeling Okay (Feat. Larkin Poe)
3. Sometime Thang
4. Some Kind Of Woman
5. Taking Flight (Feat. Ashley McBryde)
6. Simple (You Wouldn’t Call It Simple)
7. The Twenty-One Song Salute (Owed to G.G. Shinn and Cléoma Falcon) (Feat. Tyler Bryant)
8. Don’t Give Up On Me
9. Heaven Can You Help (Feat. Charlie Starr)
10. Maybe Somewhere Down The Road
June 2, 2025 @ 7:47 pm
Looking forward to it. Dude is a treasure.
“I’m up in my seventieth decade of my life”. He’s not that old. That would be a record.
June 2, 2025 @ 8:50 pm
I did a double take on that too, thinking he was saying it was his 17th decade, or his 70th decade of life. But that is actually a proper way of saying you’re in your 70s.
June 2, 2025 @ 9:19 pm
He’s in the middle of the eighth decade of his life.
70th decade would mean he could have sailed across the ocean on the Niña with Columbus and would give him a fair shot at breaking Methuselah’s record.
June 3, 2025 @ 9:48 am
That’s probably Willie Nelson.
June 2, 2025 @ 7:53 pm
I would have thought Emmylou would have for sure been in the mix somewhere, or at least mentioned. Anyway good on ya Rodney, a great contributor to many facets of the music.
June 3, 2025 @ 1:38 am
No mention of Rosanne Cash either, but given that she recorded an entire album, “Interiors,” about their deteriorating relationship, I wouldn’t expect one.
June 3, 2025 @ 7:46 am
Crowell and Rosanne have collaborated or appeared together many times since then.
It does not seem that Rodney’s is intent on revisiting the past on this album. It looks like he’s collaborating here with a later generation of artists whom he has not worked with before.
June 3, 2025 @ 7:54 am
Agreed. he did an album, It Ain’t Over Yet, that featured Rosanne in a song, and the album was pretty retrospective in nature I would say.
June 3, 2025 @ 8:38 am
In a world of Morgan Wallens be a Rodney Crowell.
June 3, 2025 @ 2:04 pm
One of my musical heroes. Integrity all the way, even the way he admitted that he got a bit lost when he hit the big-time with Diamonds and Dirt.
June 3, 2025 @ 8:48 pm
I’m a simple man. I see a new Rodney Crowell album, I listen to it.
June 4, 2025 @ 12:45 am
Why pollute a fine album with mediocre talent?
Crowell surely doesn’t need those “guests”. And none of them holds a position to benefit Crowell with a huge, new crowd neither.
June 5, 2025 @ 11:56 pm
Crowell has put out a lot of albums since turning 60–by anyone’s standards, save Willie Nelson. Most recent one was The Chicago Sessions in 2023.
His label probably told him there’s not a lof of demand for another straight Rodney Crowell album right now. A project with some younger, like minded artists makes it seem fresh and interesting. (I’m sure he didn’t go in with the attituede that the other artists are mediocre and don’t hold a position to benefit him._
June 7, 2025 @ 8:50 am
But that is the result.
His finest album is still “The Houston Kid”.