Rodney Crowell’s Past is Present

Rodney Crowell closed 2017’s magnificent Close Ties with “Nashville 1972,” a warts-and-all recounting of his first year in Music City surrounded by the likes of Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt.  Those giants are no longer on this plane, but their ghosts hover around the edges of the straightforwardly-titled Acoustic Classics, Crowell’s first album on his own newly-formed imprint, RC1. 

Artists as seemingly wide-ranging as the Black Crowes to Kris Kristofferson have reimagined their best work late into their careers with brilliantly inspired results.  Unlike the “unplugged” trend MTV helped develop in the ‘90s, where acoustic arrangements were generally meant to strip away the bombast, gloss, or grandiosity of the originals in search of a more organic approach, these more recent projects – Acoustic Classics included – revisit a group of old friends in a new way.  The stories may be the same, but the telling of them is from a place of experience, hindsight, and a bit more gravitas. 

Consider “Making Memories of Us,” written by Crowell for his wife and previously cut by the Notorious Cherry Bombs, Crowell’s reunion of his old supergroup in 2004 and a number one hit for Keith Urban the following year.  The Acoustic Classics version is not only more intimate than any of the previous versions, but it just feels more authentic, more…lived in.  Sometimes the truest declarations of love come from looking back at what you’ve been through together and after the dust settles, knowing for a fact that you’d do it all again for each other. 

Crowell revisits “Please Remember Me” and “After All This Time” in much the same way; the grains of age in his voice – recorded up front and void of any effects – adding layers of emotional depth a younger voice just can’t reach. 

The biggest surprise comes in “Shame on the Moon Redux,” a complete rewrite of the song Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band took all the way to number two on the pop charts in 1982.  Crowell turns this new version into a kind of elegy, as he reminisces over where he was in life when he wrote possibly his most well-known song.  This version is similar in tone to “I Don’t Care Anymore” off Close Ties. 

It’s not all balladry and heartbreak, however.  Crowell turns in a back-porch, mile-wide grin-filled take on his early hit for the Oak Ridge Boys, “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight” and the oft-covered Outlaw anthem, “Ain’t Living Long Like This.”  A handful of tracks from his record-breaking Diamonds & Dirt make the cut, including “I Couldn’t Leave You If I Tried” – here sounding more like a long-lost Buck Owens song than ever before – and the Guy Clark co-write, “She’s Crazy for Leaving.”

In a wise move, Acoustic Classics sheds light on more recent songs that deserve to be heard in context with his classic material, including “Earthbound,” originally on 2003’s critically acclaimed Fate’s Right Hand, and “Anything but Tame,” a highlight from his collaboration with writer Mary Karr from the Kin project in 2012. 

It’s been 40 years since Rodney Crowell’s debut album, Ain’t Living Long Like This, and 30 years since the multiple award-winning Diamonds & Dirt.  During that time, he’s shifted from hip Texas songwriter to country superstar to 21st-century elder statesman.  While Acoustic Classics breaks no new ground, it’s a pleasant way to spend a lazy afternoon on the back porch with an old friend – retelling tales, sharing a laugh, and maybe shedding a tear.  To paraphrase one of his late ‘80s hits, Rodney Crowell’s past is present on Acoustic Classics, proving these warhorses are as timeless as their creator.

RC1