Rodney Crowell - Tarpaper Sky - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Full of deep empathy, sober insights, and lively guitar licks, Rodney Crowell's new album takes it's title from a seemingly mundane stretch of four-lane blacktop that runs deep into Louisiana. It's the road he and producer Tyler Bryant drove to reach the remote studio where they recorded these songs, hauling a truckload of gear on a two-day journey that ended in swamps. Along the way Crowell looked up the route they were driving Airline Highway. It's the southernmost segment of Highway 61, also called the Blues Highway or the Great River Road, and it follows the Mississippi River from Minnesota down to New Orleans. Crowell is intimately familiar with this part of the country. He grew up on the east side of Houston, just a few hours west of the state line, and made wild forays into Louisiana as a young man to drink or carouse or mostly to catch live music. Airline Highway is an album full of old, abiding loves, whether it's a favorite song or a lover you remember fondly. Songs like InchSometime ThangInch and InchRainy Days in CaliforniaInch (the latter featuring Lukas Nelson) raise a glass to old romances and encounters with different women in California or down in Louisiana falling in love, toughing out hard times, growing apart until they become Inchthat small voice on your phone,Inch to quote a devastating line on InchTaking Flight,Inch co-written with and featuring Ashley McBryde. Some are fictional, Crowell explains, but they all contain some kernel of truth. InchAt a basic level there are a lot more years behind me than there are ahead of me. Now it's just about the work and what a blessing it is to be able to do it. The work truly feeds me in the moment.Inch

2023 . Says Rodney Crowell InchIt's just me and the band in a room together, loose and live and having fun.Inch Produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, The Chicago Sessions is indeed a throwback to Crowell's early days of making records, but it's no nostalgia trip. The songs here are vital and timely, touching on everything from love and mortality to race and religion, and the performances are nothing short of intoxicating, fueled by raw guitars, honky-tonk piano, and tight, punchy drums. Tweedy wields a light touch as a producer, his influence subtle yet unmistakable, and engineer Tom Schick's mixes are dynamic and alive, alternately rich and spacious in all the right places with a spotlight fixed firmly on Crowell's warm, weathered vocals throughout. Put it all together and you've got a masterful, cross-generational collaboration that manages to feel both fresh and familiar all at once, an incisive, engaging collection that balances careful craftsmanship with joyful liberation at every turn.Inch

That's the Price of Loving Me is the third solo album by Dean Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean & Britta), and his first album with producer Kramer since 1990's InchThis Is Our Music.Inch Recorded in Los Angeles with Britta Phillips on bass and vocals, Anthony LaMarca (The War on Drugs) and Roger Brogan on drums. The upcoming record includes eight new Wareham compositions plus covers of Nico and Mayo Thompson. Dean Wareham will be touring Europe and the USA in April and May 2025.