Rodney Crowell and his band headed for the Uptown March 3rd
Singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell has been a celebrated figure in country and Americana music for a half century. The list of his honors includes nominations and wins at the Grammys, the Americana Music Awards, the Country Music Association Awards and ASCAP. For his songwriting, he was inducted in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and received the 2019 Poet’s Award from the Academy of Country Music. The list of artists who have recorded his songs is a literal who’s who of country and Americana stars.
Touring for his 20th album, 2025’s “Airline Highway,” Crowell and his band will perform at the Uptown Theatre in Napa on Tuesday, March 3rd at 7 p.m. For tickets and further information, see www.uptowntheatrenapa.com.
On the phone from his home in Nashville in mid-February, Crowell talked in some detail about the craft of songwriting, starting with his lyrical concept of “the workshop of words.”
“The workshop of words,” he said, “is the place I go to make imagination an actual literal event in the form of chord changes and lyrics. One of the things that really changed my approach to songwriting was the time I spent writing my memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks. During that process I was trying to learn through osmosis, and with a really good editor, how to write sentences and paragraphs and chapters and so on. Intuitively at first, and then through repetition, I came to understand the best ways for me to express myself with greater clarity. And I discovered that it applied to songwriting as well.
“To some extent talking about songwriting is a little like talking about a magic trick. Basically, my belief is that the best songs I write already exist fully formed in another dimension, another place that I have access to when I’m properly aligned with my work ethic. My rule of thumb is that I don’t tell the song what it wants to be. I let the song tell me what it wants to be. I could say that in another way that’s less poetic, which is, ‘man, if I work hard enough, I’ll find out exactly what this song needs to be.’
“With years of experience, what I did intuitively or instinctively as a young man, especially in my 20’s, I have learned to do intentionally. But instinct is the starting place. I believe that in any form of creative writing we don’t want to move too far away from instinct. Then intentionality, your editing tool, needs to be applied. My best songs are written from my heart. And at some particular point, my brain becomes an editing tool. If I’m really doing the job, my brain is a very careful editing tool, and doesn’t just go in, willy-nilly, you know, with a chainsaw.”
Crowell talked about a category of songwriters whom he describes as ‘organic.’ “In talking about organic songwriters,” he said, “I’m talking about instinctive or intuitive artistic expression separate from business or career ambition. I consider people like Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon to be organic songwriters. Tom Waits is one the most instinctive songwriters there is. I wouldn’t put myself in that group, because it wouldn’t be very decorous of me to throw myself in there, even though I feel as though I come from that same place.
“In Nashville, there are certainly songwriters who make a really good living writing songs for other people. Therefore it’s largely an intentional mental process. I’m sure there’s some intuitiveness about it, but the mindset behind that approach it is to make money. I don’t fault any writer for doing that. Good for them if they can do it. A lot of writers have done really well for themselves by writing intentionally to get someone else to record their songs. Whereas, I know for a fact that everything Guy Clark wrote and almost everything that I’ve written successfully has been an instinctive thing, and was not about money. Making money was never even a thought that entered into it.”
Crowell enthusiastically described his bandmates for the current tour. “I have a really good band,” he said. “Mark Copley out of New York City is a sweetly talented guitarist, a great player and a great singer. Jerry Pentecost is a terrific drummer. He played with Bob Dylan and many others. Victor Krauss is our bass player and probably one of the Nashville’s finest musicians. Finally, Jen Gunderman is a wonderful keyboard player and vocalist who has performed and recorded with an array of major artists including Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, John Prine, Vince Gill and many others.”
“It’s a particularly good group,” Crowell added, “and I just have a lot of fun with them. They make me sound good. Let me be honest, they take a pay cut to work with me. And I can only bow and thank heavens that I can write good enough songs to keep them interested enough to want to come play with me.”
David Kerns is a Napa-based music jounalist and novelist.
