Rodney Crowell – Texas (Vinyl LP)

Grammy winner Rodney Crowell explores his Lone Star roots with an eclectic cast of all-star friends on Texas, his adventurous new album of collaborations. Featuring Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Ronnie Dunn, Billy F Gibbons, Randy Rogers, Vince Gill, Lee Ann Womack, Steve Earle, Ringo Starr and more, the eleven tracks on Texas represent not just a fresh batch of weathered poetry from one of Americana’s finest craftsmen, but also an iconic singer-songwriter letting loose with his friends.

“For the last few years, I’d been writing Texas-centric songs and revisiting some of my tunes from as far back as the mid-seventies,” Crowell explains. “Last year, I started referring to the collection of songs as the Texas album. Interestingly it all started with Ringo Starr who, through a mutual friend, let me know he was keen to record a track. Before I knew it, Lee Ann Womack, Ronnie Dunn, Willie Nelson, Randy Rogers, Lyle Lovett and Vince Gill had climbed on board. Ray Kennedy and I took hold of the production reins, enlisted a cast of bad ass musicians and voilá, Texas was born. Man, was it a fun record to make.”

Twangy two steppers stand alongside hard-driving blues rockers and dusty cowboy ballads, sharing time with windblown prairie gems, quirky spoken-word compositions and historically-charged singalongs. Each one is defined by Crowell’s famously sharp, vivid storytelling and authentic vernacular.