“Guy Clark was very instrumental. First of all, my father was very inspirational for me because he knew countless songs, so I heard them growing up,” Crowell said. “So when I got to Nashville and I fell into a songwriting salon where – you mentioned Townes Van Zandt and Guy; Mickey Newbury was around from time to time; Steve Earle came through there – it was all, you know, 11 p.m. till 4 a.m., or to dawn.
“And Guy is the best self-editor I’ve ever come across. And by that I mean Guy would elbow out lines that other songwriters would give their arm to come up with. And I said, ‘Guy, why’d you throw that away?’ He said, ‘Because it doesn’t fit the narrative.’ I learned a lot about that.
“But at the same time, I witnessed Townes tapping into … wherever inspiration comes from. Townes was mystical in that way, and Guy was more practical.”
Crowell said both rubbed off on him.
“There are times I have awakened and written a song nearly in full form, recorded it on a little recorder beside the bed and gone back to sleep and woke up and found it – that has happened,” he said. “And at the same time, I’ve spent 30 years trying to finish a song.”
That’s been the case with one of his biggest songs, “Shame on the Moon,” released in 1981.
“I’m still working on it; honestly, I am,” he said. “Someday I’m gonna solve that last verse.”
“Airline Highway” is a note to the state of Louisiana, Crowell said.
“Considering that I’ve written ‘Stars on the Water,’ ‘Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight,’ ‘Fever on the Bayou,’ I’ve put Louisiana on the map, and they owe me some love,” he laughed. “So now I’ve gone down and made a whole album there.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.texasstandard.org ’
