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Rodney Crowell's music always engages me. "Sex & Gasoline" is an excellent set, churning, restless & looking for faith. Bearing in mind that Dylan wrote a song "I Want You," Crowell's "I Want You #35" churns restlessly and builds into a furious workout, "Something changed you, laid you low, dulled your senses, made you slow, wrote your name down in the book, staked a claim on how you look; I can't blame you if you think I'd tie you to the kitchen sink, drain your pockets, drink your blood, drag you through the muck & mud; It must be said, you made your bed, but I want you." This is a dynamic restless rolling classic track.
"I Know Love is All I Need" & "The Man in Me" both went to #1 on my personal top ten. The title track percolates cynically with Jay Bellerose's percussion adding sparkle, "Perhaps the convent, perhaps the knife, you shoulda coulda woulda been a rich man's wife." "I don't want to be somebody that I can't bear to be, I don't want to stand in the back if I can't sit down at the front, I don't want to wear the ball & jack & I don't want to punt," Crowell croons on the talk-sing "Who Do You Trust." The cover shows Crowell looking out from the edge of the bed with a girl with a beauty mark on her derriere. From "I Ain't Living Long Like This," his songs consistently capture my imagination.
From there, Crowell slows the pace on the meditative "I've Done Everything I Can" where producer Joe Henry joins on vocals. "Sex & Gasoline" is a restless set, with Crowell exploring things that intrigue and bug him. The liner photography with an old record player and a couple stacks of records with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan staring out sets a tone of looking back.
On the slow "Forty Winters" Crowell uses the image in his lyric, "40 winters, cold & dark, surround you like a beauty mark." The set closes with "Closer to Heaven," "I'm offended by buzz words like 'awesome' & 'dude'" Perhaps unfortunately for him, Crowell is awesome, dude. Enjoy.
Rodney sure has come a long way. To think he doesn't have to do anymore at this point in his career and turns out a fantastic piece of work like Sex and Gasoline. I agree with what I heard a DJ say the other day."I hope I'm that horney when I'm 60".
I am a big fan of Rodney Crowell's and was thrilled to see he had a new album out. The lyrics and music are great, and it's good to see that Crowell still has a lot to say about the world and his place in it.
And the thing to know is, in my 20s, when I was selling millions of records, I felt irrelevant.JK: Ever think, 'I wrote hits once. On LINK Sex & Gasoline, for example, there's a song called "The Rise and Fall of Intelligent Design." It takes a certain breed of listener to care --- someone who hopes to shake a leg and get a clue.I'm a fool for anyone who aims high, talks smart and has some miles on the tires. And who was once married to Rosanne Cash. Hey, I've gone into therapy, because there was a time I had to understand 'we've never loved you and never will.' In an ongoing conversation with my daughter, I've said, 'Until a man is 38, he won't have any idea how he loves you. But "Sex and Gasoline" --- I'm trying to tear that out of my heart.
Now you're pushing the AARP Ages, and no matter how great your work is, the reality is that you won't be nearly as visible or commercially successful as young talent. They were good songwriters, and I wanted to be. How do you do the mental math on that.Rodney Crowell: You mean, how do you explain a guy whose commercial peak was 20 years ago but whose artistic peak is happening now.JK: Yes. In 1999, I decided I'd start doing work my kids could hold up as my legacy. Money comes on the back end. And to hear that voice and sing those songs --- that's a celebration.JK: Those broad-stroke love songs.RC: Well, railing against a duplicitous bunch of lying bastards --- it's not timeless art. So I understand what T-Bone Burnett meant when he told me, 'You must not be interested in money. Ladies and gents.Rodney Crowell.Jesse Kornbluth: You had extreme success in your 20s.
And then there is the small problem of Crowell's narrowing appeal: He now makes music almost exclusively for grown-ups. My sensibility has changed.JK: What happened.RC: Small epiphanies that added up to a big one. And his tight, wry lyrics are so right that, when I served on the membership committee at PEN a few years ago, Rodney was one of the first songwriters I suggested as PEN-worthy.This time, the mere fact of the nomination is impressive --- radio stations aren't racing to showcase the music of any 58-year-old musician. Because if you aimed for the C and D students, you'd be rich.'JK: The A and B students --- what do you serve up to them now.RC: Now my songs are more about articulating the obscurity of my lost interior.
Start anywhere.RC: For me, the real deal is relevance. I think I'll sit down and write a song for.'.RC: No. When people ask me how I make a living, I say, 'I get paid to trust the universe.' The truth about all those big hits is this: I never wrote one for any reason but to write the best song I could. So "Sex & Gasoline" has been nominated for a Grammy.Yawn.Given how many classic songs he's written in his three-decade career, it would be surprising if Rodney Crowell released a CD that was anything less than award-worthy --- his music has more hooks that a fishing lure. And I moved from broad-stroke love songs to an articulation of my sensibility.JK: This would be a C-student question, but considering your aims, maybe not. How much of the new CD is a character posturing and how much is what you really think and believe.RC: Sometimes you get to act as a character as you deliver the narrative. And "I've Done Everything I Can" was written directly to a daughter who put herself in harm's way.JK: "Tired ol' story sad but true/We mama's boy's have got it in for you/Our faults are many our virtues nil/We never loved you and we never will" --- is that you.RC: It is. It is.
It's art created for a time. And a father of a young daughter is automatically interested in talking to the father of four girls. I don't care much for serenity. Just because I don't seem to write them now doesn't mean I can't. 'Till I Gain Control Again' --- I was trying to be in a league with Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. He might be looking for mother, he might be looking for shelter from the storm.' Anyway, that's my past.JK: And yet, in concert, you sometimes sing with Rosanne Cash, and you were married to her from the ages of 29 to 42.RC: We've maintained a civility and co-parented some girls. But I do like timeless art, and I'd like to create some.
Not his best album, but well above average for today's country music. A great songwriter on a very good album.
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