Rodney Crowell

As a kid, Rodney Crowell learned the craft of songwriting by hanging around two of the best of any era or genre – Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. He’s never been able to match his mentors’ lyrical sharpness – who could, really? – but Crowell has a knack for commercial appeal that they could never muster. His widespread draw peaked in 1988 with the album Diamonds and Dust, which chalked up an unprecedented five straight number one country singles.

These days, though, Crowell would just as soon forget about all that. Since his emergence in 2001 from a seven-year recording and performing hiatus, he’s made a decided effort to focus on art, not sales. Being true to himself, not a record label, is top priority. “Three albums back, I made a promise to myself that what I’d record from that point on would be my legacy,” Crowell told Glide recently.

Indeed, his second-act canon – 2001’s Houston Kid, 2003’s Fate’s Right Hand and this latest effort – is the most artistically rich streak in Crowell’s career. “Beautiful despair is why you lean into this world without restraint/’Cause somewhere out before you lies the masterpiece you’d sell your soul to paint,” he sings on The Outsider’s fifth track, “Beautiful Despair.” This entire album embodies the spirit of those lines. The Outsider isn’t a masterpiece worth selling your soul to create, like, say, Clark’s Old No. 1 or Van Zandt’s Live at the Old Quarter. But for Crowell it’s another step in the right direction.