Rodney Crowell Teams Up With Jeff Tweedy On Stirring ‘The Chicago Sessions’ (ALBUM REVIEW)

The producer/artist collaboration between Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Rodney Crowell on The Chicago Sessions isn’t exactly a marriage made in heaven, but it is a logical meeting of the minds. As a member of Uncle Tupelo, the former helped configure what came to be known as alt-country in the late Eighties into the Nineties, while the latter, in a timeline overlapping that band’s chronology, spearheaded a similar reconfiguration of contemporary country music as a songwriter, solo artist and member of Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band.

This new studio effort of Crowell’s, his eighteenth overall, also evokes comparisons to his stellar, latter-day autobiography-in-song Tarpaper Sky. Emphasizing the simplicity of the original songs–an approach in keeping with the down-to-earth studio setting pictured in the CD insert–the arrangements are bereft of the superfluous strings that marred his last effort, 2021’s Triage.

Accordingly, Rodney Crowell sounds as natural and unaffected as can be. While the rhymes sound too easy at first, by the second verse of the inviting opener, “Lucky,” the conversational flow of the lyrics becomes readily apparent. The laconic vocal delivery of the author reinforces the impression of judicious restraint at work, as does the pithy piano of Catherine Marx and electric guitar breaks by Jedd Hughes. 

That pair’s respective instrumental contributions have the same effect on the easygoing shuffle of “Somebody Loves You” as well as the unplugged likes of “Oh Miss Claudia.” Authentic elements of blues resonate as fully from the ivories as fully as from the fretboard, all the more notable additions because the prominent placement of similar sounds would mitigate the somewhat clumsy conceit of “Loving You Is The Only Way to Fly.” 

By contrast, the arrangement of instruments around Rodney’s forthright singing on “You’re Supposed to Feel Good” echoes the emotional content of the song itself. A litany of mixed emotions left purposefully unresolved by the end of the cut, group harmony vocals ring with further overtones of conflict; it’s an ideal setup for the gentle intimacy of “No Place to Fall,” where the lyric imagery of that composition finds its corollary in a thoughtful grand piano. 

An equally soft strum of acoustic guitar, courtesy of long-time Crowell collaborator Steuart Smith, subtly decorates the open emotional expression “Making Lovers Out Of Friends.” As on Rodney Crowell’s best records–not coincidentally, 1978’s Ain’t Living Long Like This, to which the artist himself compares this one–such nuanced juxtapositions thrive throughout The Chicago Sessions.

As often as not, those settings conjure an atmosphere of informal spontaneity. During “Everything At Once,” in fact, the thought occurs Jeff Tweedy and his own band might benefit from such a relaxed attitude; perhaps that’s why this record’s producer appears here and, furthermore, why this ten-track sequencing unfolds as it does. 

Still, the understated wisdom of the refrain within “Ever The Dark” sounds readily applicable to more than just an approach to the recording studio. The honky-tonk air of both those numbers simultaneously legitimizes and downplays the undercurrent of dogma in their words, thereby rendering more palpable that recognition of mortality pervading “Ready To Move On:” not only does this track hearkens to Crowell’s health issues of recent years, but it also supplies a ready air of finality as the conclusion to The Chicago Sessions. 

So unassuming an offering it may very well sneak onto more than a few ‘Best of ’23’ lists, this LP certainly deserves such placement. Its forty-some minutes contain more than a few of those deeply stirring moments only truly great records possess.

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