Leave it to the Houston Kid, Rodney Crowell, to debut a new song about his former home town live on BBC. Rocks Off received a message from local music savant Father Sean Horrigan early Wednesday with a link to Crowell’s performance.
Crowell, whose work has always been informed by his early life in the Bayou City, debuted a brand new composition, “East Houston Blues,” on BBC’s Another Country with Ricky Ross program earlier this week. So far the video only has about 100 views.
The tune sounds like an extension of Crowell’s celebrated 2000 album The Houston Kid. A decade later, the singer also published a memoir about his years in Houston, Chinaberry Sidewalks, and “East Houston Blues” seems ripped directly from its pages.
Crowell goes geographic on “East Houston Blues,” with some nice shoutouts to local thoroughfares.
East Houston blues, picture Dowling Street
Navigation Boulevard, where the crossroads meet
Crowell also crows that he’s
A Third Ward child, my father’s only son
Which means exactly nothin’ without a loaded gun
We’re wondering if this marks a return to Houston Kid form for Crowell, whose most recent album Tarpaper Sky was an uneven affair.
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This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2015.