The Texas Songwriters Association and the Austin Songwriters Group are honored to present an intimate evening of performance, storytelling and song with Texas-born artists Rodney Crowell and Mary Karr on Friday, January 29, 2010 at 8:00 PM. The concert will be hosted by Unity Church of the Hills in Northwest Austin. This unique pairing of two of America’s finest creative artists is a one time only performance to support the Austin Songwriters Group's ongoing programs for both aspiring and professional songwriters. On Saturday, January 30, Rodney Crowell will deliver the keynote speech at the 6th Annual ASG Songwriters Conference held this year in South Austin at the Wyndham Conference Center.
Houston born singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell is truly among the elite list of songwriters of our time, not just from Texas, but, in the world. Born into a musical family, Crowell made his first serious jump towards a professional music career in 1972 when he moved to Nashville where he befriended songwriting legends Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, among others. After signing a publishing deal in 1975 with Jerry Reed’s publishing company, Crowell moved to Los Angeles to join Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band, where he became one of Emmylou’s principal songwriters as well as lead guitarist in her band. While with Harris, he penned several Emmylou classics, including the perennially recorded songs “Till I Gain Control Again,” “Ain’t Living Long Like This,” “Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight” and “Bluebird Wine.”
In 1978, Crowell began producing Rosanne Cash’s debut record, Right or Wrong. The creative pairing ultimately led to a marriage between the two, both creatively and personally. Rodney produced many of Rosanne’s finest records, including Seven Year Ache and King’s Record Shop. Reciprocating, Rosanne provided duet and backing vocals on many of Rodney’s records, most notably, the #1 country hit, “It’s Such A Small World.” The end of their marriage resulted in some of the finest creative work in both artist’s illustrious catalogs and underscored their individual gifts for giving confessional voice to the alternately stark and redemptive power of love and relationships in a world fraught with challenges and temptations.
After experiencing the unprecedented success of being the first artist in country music history to have five #1 songs from a single album, 1988’s Diamonds and Dirt, Crowell rode a wave of popularity that began to wane by the mid-nineties. After a six-year break between records, in 2001, Crowell released The Houston Kid, an artistically courageous songwriting chronicle of his life growing up in East Houston. Since then, with the subsequent releases Fate’s Right Hand(2003), The Outsider (2005) and Sex & Gasoline (2008), his critical acclaim has soared ever higher and, in some circles, his name is now ensconced among the top songwriters of our time, in any genre.
It was Rodney’s idea to bring along award-winning author-poet, Mary Karr, for this special, one-off performance to benefit ASG. Mary’s first memoir, The Liar’s Club, ignited a revolution in non-fiction “memoir-style” writing and subsequently received nonfiction prizes from PEN and the Texas Institute of Letters. The memoir, which documents her hardscrabble early life growing up in East Texas, was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, rode high in several major, year end “best book” lists and was rated number four in the top one hundred books of the past twenty-five years by Entertainment Weekly.
Her second memoir, the notable 2001 bestseller Cherry, chronicled her coming-of-age years and her quest for life beyond East Texas, specifically in California in the sixties. In November 2009, she released what some believe to be her best book yet, Lit: A Memoir, which chronicles her adult years, a descent into the family cycle of alcoholism, and ultimately her recovery, redemption and spiritual awakening. With her trademark capacity for fierce honesty, harrowing detail and lyrical wit, Lit has upped the ante on Mary Karr’s already formidable talents, and it now appears she has gained the hard won high ground necessary to live life to the fullest on her own peaceful terms. Lit is currently in the Top 20 on the New York Times Bestseller list and was recently chosen by Entertainment Weekly as the second best book of 2009.
The event will be held at Unity Church of the Hills, which regularly hosts a wide range of concerts, musicals, seminars and special events at its facilities in northwest Austin, located at 9905 Anderson Mill They will both be doing readings from their written works. Rodney and Mary have also been collaborating together on some songs.
Tickets for the performance only are $30 each and can be purchased online at ASG’s website. There is also a limited capacity, pre-show reception with Rodney at 7:00 PM, also at Unity Church of the Hills. Tickets to attend the reception are $80, which includes a photo with Rodney and your ticket for the performance at 8:00 PM.
www.austinsongwritersgroup.com for tickets
