Live music review: Legendary singer Rodney Crowell kicked off tour in Houston

The Heights Theater in Houston was the setting on August 15 for legendary singer Rodney Crowell to kick off his tour supporting his fantastic new album Texas. Nestled in the Northwest quarter of the 610 Loop, in “The Heights” neighborhood of Houston, the Spanish Mission-style structure was built in the 1920s as the neighborhood movie house. Like most of these “small town” theaters it couldn’t compete in the days of outlandish cinema-plexes chasing the urban sprawl and eventually fell into disrepair.

In 2015 the building was purchased and extensively renovated into a top-tier live music venue, featuring a full kitchen and modern conveniences. A second story balcony provides additional seating. Each seat is no more than 90 feet from the center stage. The Heights boast that from this distance anyone with 20/20 vision can see the expression of the performers on stage. That’s pretty much true.

I considered all of this when Rodney Crowell quietly took stage to kick off his tour. Absent any announcements or lights, fanfare or other theatrical grand ingress, he just strolled on stage with his black and white Gibson, easing into his near-perfect songs. Crowell’s Texas Tour is designed to complement the release of his new album. He’s assembled a full band for the tour: The Texas Band, featuring Stuart Smith (lead guitar, vocals), Nathan Barnes on drums, Lex Price (bass, mandolin) Hanna Sutherland (keys and vocals), and Eamon McLoughlin (mandolin, fiddle, vocals).

The Texas Band is a formidable group. Smith’s day job is with The Eagles, McLoughlin holds court as Staff Fiddler for The Grand Ole Opry. Price appears to be a master on the bass, Barnes rocked the drums, or “pots and pans” as Crowell called them, and Sutherland displayed grace, excellent vocals, even taking center stage for one song. Crowell can entrance an audience by himself, with a firecracker band he can burn the whole house down. He did just that!

Some of the beautiful aspects of Crowell’s music, is his wide range of style, influence, and passion. He can go from the soft and tender, “I Know Love Is All I Need”; a whisper soft ode to his parents and his own determination to find a happier life than his parents made for themselves, to the honky tonk, “Aint Living Long Like This,” once covered by Waylon Jennings, about the hard living and loving ways of an outlaw musician. He makes it all look and sound easy.

The venerable singer has this larger than life persona, yet at the same time Crowell seems as humble as a poor man’s clergy. He doesn’t act magnanimous, but he does accept the rewards of his musical endeavors. There is a way about him one only gets from being comfortable in their own skin, from failures or success, and all points in between, if the man ever faked his way through life, he left that tactic behind years ago.

Crowell moved the show along quickly, pausing for only a few brief stories, keeping the audience on their feet. Near the beginning of the show some major feedback was going on with his microphone. He made a joke about it, looked at the frantic sound engineer, and said, “You’re not going to find it, and we can’t keep these folks waiting”. He then re-positioned himself to compensate for the feedback and picked up an old song as if it had handles and held it up high for all of us to see and hear. He kept up the heavy lifting all night. Showing us subtle pieces of his soul, his ragged old heart, brilliant mind and stellar talent.

In music we are taught the Four Elements: Melody, Harmony, Rhythm, and Dynamics. I would suggest not only do all four live inside Crowell, but that he embodies them into a singular, masterful form. The singer and guitarist is more than just a 3-chord player, though he often yields to others. But even when he’s holding back and letting the musicians work, he strums chords, and picks notes from strings like the gods snatching a star from the heavens to show it to you in their hands.

He sings and bends his voice in a way that makes you see those same stars in his hands now brighter, and truer. With the crack of his voice at the end of a line, he breaks your heart, and you feel obligated to thank it for it.

With his masterful songwriting he has mapped out where the light will lead you, and what you must feel. The joy and sadness, the hope and bitter disappointment, even the triumph the tragedy all come together as one stand alone beautiful soul.

But that’s just three elements, the voice, the singing and the musicianship. The fourth is his black Gibson. A guitar so special to Crowell, it appears he plays it more earnestly as if the instrument demands a little extra respect. And it does, that six string is special.

Crowell often plays a vintage 1932 Gibson L-00, he calls Black Betty. The instrument was gifted to him by Sterling Ball, owner of Ernie Ball Guitar Strings. The story is, Crowell sang a song at Ball’s daughter’s wedding and the magnificent guitar was a gift from that evening. The singer has described the vibration traveling up the neck to his left hand. The L-00 has a rich and warm sound many wouldn’t expect to hear from a smaller body guitar, but these are some of the finest guitars ever built. In his hands, it becomes a part of him, and his music. This is fourth element of Rodney Crowell.

Crowell and The Texas Band carried us for over two hours, song after song, lifting The Heights Theater right off the ground, and placing it back on its aged foundation as he gently as sang us all through the heavens and back. Check out Crowell’s upcoming tour dates including stops at Gruene Hall and Austin in September and October.

Please follow and like us: