Rodney Crowell

Taking his cues from the rock & roll primitivism of such late-'70s British power-popsters as Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds, Rodney Crowell became an important link between the hippie-era country rock of Gram Parsons and the post-punk Americana of Lucinda Williams and Ryan Adams; Crowell even did time in Emmylou Harris' Hot Band. His style of singing and songwriting owes more to the playfulness of Buddy Holly and the sublime beauty of Roy Orbison than to the chaos and crackle of Jerry Lee Lewis or Johnny Cash. As a songwriter, Crowell's written a handful of classic country-pop tunes ("Till I Gain Control Again," "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight"), and delivered hits for artists as varied as the Oak Ridge Boys and Bob Seger.

In the decade following his excellent debut -- a country-rock hybrid that updates the late Parsons' so-called Cosmic American Music -- Crowell floundered, putting out a couple of now-deleted albums for Warner Bros. and one for Columbia. But on Diamonds & Dirt, he developed the sound he's cultivated since then: that of a cosmopolitan neorockabilly singer/songwriter whose heart-tugging ballads and uptempo dance tunes set the standard for Nashville's New Traditionalist movement. Crowell's songs aren't based so much on old-school clichŽ and wordplay as on real-life pathos served up with a hip sense of humor -- kind of like Parsons'. And country fans ate it up; Diamonds produced five #1 hits, bringing Cosmic American Music squarely into the Nashville mainstream.

On Keys to the Highway, Crowell's songwriting became more confessional. "Things I Wish I'd Said," inspired by the death of his father, and the folky "Many a Long and Lonesome Highway" are among his strongest songs. But the album was a commer-cial disappointment, and Nashville turned its fickle back on Crowell. His follow-up, Life Is Messy, is lyrically bleak, with music that brings much more of a rock edge to the songs. Crowell was coming out of a divorce from Johnny Cash's singer/songwriter daughter Rosanne, and his feelings bleed through nearly every track. When Crowell switched record labels for Let the Picture Paint Itself and Jewel of the South, he ventured further into pop-rock singer/songwriter territory, but his writing had lost much of its sting.

After a six-year sabbatical, Crowell returned in 2001 with the best album of his career. The Houston Kid, released on the independent country-folk label Sugar Hill, is straight-up autobiography. Plain-tive, laid-back, and utterly honest, this raw, cinematic song cycle tells Crowell's story through snapshots, extended scenes, confessions, and anecdotes. It's a songwriter's masterpiece, and at its center is a rewriting of his former father-in-law's classic "I Walk the Line," with a spoken story about the impact it made on Crowell the first time he heard the song.

The Rodney Crowell Collection is a solid over-view of his Warner Bros. years, and Greatest Hits compiles his best Columbia material. Super Hits overlaps with Greatest Hits, but leaves off important songs. (MARK KEMP)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide