Rodney Crowell has released his new album Airline Highway today via New West Records, a record that finds the legendary songwriter reflecting on his past while forging ahead with new collaborators who grew up on his songs.
The 10-track collection was produced by Tyler Bryant and recorded at Dockside Studio in Maurice, Louisiana with Grammy-winning engineer Trina Shoemaker. The sessions carried a loose, live-in-the-room spirit, often captured in just a handful of takes, steeped in Louisiana humidity and swamp-pop soul.
Crowell describes the location as “right at the place where nowhere becomes now here,” recalling a time when he would drive from Houston to Louisiana as a teenager to chase live music and trouble. Those memories seep into Airline Highway, an album filled with the wisdom of a songwriter in his seventh decade, but still fueled by curiosity and joy.
While Crowell has always drawn strength from collaboration, Airline Highway is notable for its impressive guest list of younger artists who count him as a cornerstone influence.
Lukas Nelson co-wrote and duets on the opening “Rainy Days in California.”
Ashley McBryde joins him on the reflective “Taking Flight.”
Charlie Starr of Blackberry Smoke brings grit to “Heaven Can You Help.”
Rebecca and Megan Lovell of Larkin Poe add harmonies and slide guitar throughout, especially vivid on “Louisiana Sunshine Feeling Okay.”
Producer Tyler Bryant steps forward on “The Twenty-One Song Salute (Owed to G.G. Shinn and Cléoma Falcon).”
It’s a gathering of voices that span generations, a reminder of how deeply Crowell’s songwriting has shaped country, Americana, and roots music.
Crowell’s career stretches back more than fifty years. Raised in East Houston, Texas, he began chasing songs as a teenager, sneaking across the state line to Louisiana clubs. His first break came in the 1970s as a member of Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band, where his swamp-pop roots fused with Harris’ country-rock revolution.
By the late 1970s he had launched his solo career, while simultaneously penning hits for others. Over the decades, Crowell has landed 15 #1 songs on the country charts, collected two Grammy Awards, and written for legends including Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban, and even R&B and rock greats like Etta James, Van Morrison, and Bob Seger.
Just last month, Willie Nelson released his 77th solo album Oh What A Beautiful World, made up entirely of Crowell compositions, including a duet with Crowell on the title track.
Honors have followed him throughout the 21st century: induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (2003), the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting (2006), ASCAP’s Founder’s Award (2017), and the Academy of Country Music’s Poet’s Award (2019). This year he was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters alongside Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry.
Alongside his music, Crowell has also become an author, publishing the memoir Chinaberry Sidewalks and the lyrical retrospective Word for Word.
Despite a career that has already secured his place in history, Airline Highway shows Crowell is not interested in coasting. Instead, the album looks at how the past shapes the present without weighing it down. “At a basic level there are a lot more years behind me than there are ahead of me,” Crowell says. “My ambition isn’t to be a household name anymore. My ambition is to be satisfied with the work I do. I’m at a place where it really is about having fun.”
Early reviews suggest he has achieved exactly that. Saving Country Music called him “one of the most inspiring and influential characters in the history of country music,” while NPR Music praised him as “one of the great songwriting masters of Country and Americana.”
PopMatters went so far as to say that “since the death of Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell has assumed the crown as the King of Country Music, at least the Americana side of the genre.”
Crowell will take Airline Highway on the road this October, with shows in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and a hometown stop in Houston, among others. Select dates will feature support from The Secret Sisters, Thomas Csorba, and William Elliott Whitmore. Before the tour begins, he will perform at the Grand Ole Opry on September 3 and Americanafest in Nashville on September 13.
Airline Highway is available today across all digital platforms, on CD, and on vinyl.
Collectors can seek out limited editions including blue vinyl, orange vinyl, and the highly rare yellow-purple split “Bayou Vinyl Edition,” limited to just 100 copies in Louisiana and Texas. Autographed CDs and vinyl editions are also available via New West Records.
Airline Highway Tracklist
Rainy Days In California (Feat. Lukas Nelson)
Louisiana Sunshine Feeling Okay (Feat. Larkin Poe)
Sometime Thang
Some Kind Of Woman
Taking Flight (Feat. Ashley McBryde)
Simple (You Wouldn’t Call It Simple)
The Twenty-One Song Salute (Feat. Tyler Bryant)
Don’t Give Up On Me
Heaven Can You Help (Feat. Charlie Starr)
Maybe Somewhere Down The Road
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