Featured Album

WXPN Radio

The premier guide for new and significant artists in rock, blues, and folk - including NPR-syndicated World Cafe ®

Listen Xpo

24/7 Musical discovery. A unique mix of emerging and heritage blues, rock, world, folk, and alt-country artists.

Singer Songwriter Radio

Featuring classics from heritage troubadours to new musicians and bands in the singer-songwriter tradition.

Folk Radio

Folk music radio streaming on the web; Americana, Roots Music, recordings, and stories from folk's best.
Listen Live

Rodney Crowell - The Outsider - Columbia

As witnessed by his incredible performance at the XPN All About The Music Festival in July, Rodney Crowell has returned with yet another amazing album of country influenced rock songs. The Outsider is the third of a trilogy of CD’s that he’s released (The Houston Kid and Fate’s Right Hand being the first two) that find him at yet another creative peak of his long outstanding career.

Throughout his career Crowell has penned dozens of classic hit songs for artists like Emmylou Harris, Bob Seger, Rosanne Cash, The Oak Ridge Boys, and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, including “Ain’t Living Long Like This,” “Till I Gain Control Again,” and “Shame On The Moon.” On his own, he’s released a dozen albums since his 1978 debut and he continues to grow as a songwriter and a performer.

The Outsider finds Rodney in excellent voice and features Will Kimbrough on guitar, Buddy and Julie Miller, John Prine, Beth Nielsen Chapman, and Emmylou Harris, who joins Crowell on a Celtic-tinged cover of Bob Dylan's "Shelter From the Storm." Songs like “The Obscenity Prayer,” “Say You Love Me,” “Ignorance Is The Enemy,” and “Dancin’ Circles Round The Sun,” are some of his best songs ever. The Outsider is a natural progression for Crowell as a songwriter. Thirty years in to his illustrious career he keeps getting better.

Written by Bruce Warren

Release Date: August 16, 2005

XPN CD of the Month for August 2005

Check out our other Featured Albums of the Week | CDs of the Month

Visit Artist's Official Site.

Help Support WXPN

Non-COMM recap: Photos, audio, and setlist from the Mississippi Blues Project concert with Super Chikan and the Fighing...

Award winning Blues guitarist and singer Super Chikan and the Fighting Cocks made the trip from his home in Clarksdale, Mississippi to...Read More

Non-COMM recap: Photos, audio, and setlist from the Mississippi Blues Project concert with Homemade Jamz Blues...

Last Thursday during XPN’s Non-COMMvention, the Tupelo, Mississippi brothers and sister trio, the Homemade Jamz Blues Band,...Read More

RIP Ray Manzarek of The Doors (listen to songs from their Live at The Spectrum show in 1970)

Raymond Daniel Manczarek, Jr., known to most as Ray Manzarek, co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors from 1965 to 1973, has passed...Read More

Listen to Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee and Allison Crutchfield of Swearin’ cover Grimes via Rookie...

This is a pretty awesome track from the fun and talented Crutchfield sisters. For Rookie Mag’s “Theme Song” series,...Read More

Non-COMM Recap: Pete Yorn and J.D. King brought The Olms to World Cafe Live

Photo by Joe Del Tufo | JoeDelTufo.com Pete Yorn and J.D. King developed their new project The Olms out of a shared love of 60s psych...Read More