Rodney Crowell's "lost" album Then Again set for release in June

Rodney felt the time is right for the songs he cut in 2005 with Guy Clark and Emmylou Harris to be released as Then Again. 

Here's the scoop on Then Again...

“I guess you could call it a lost album,” says Rodney Crowell. “I stumbled upon it in my vault at home. I’d forgotten about it completely.” He’s referring to Then Again, which he recorded and shelved two decades ago before moving off into new directions. Since then, the album has been biding its time, waiting for the moment when its songs would hit hardest. And they hit incredibly hard now, largely because age and experience have granted Crowell a richer perspective. “I’m glad I put it on the shelf, because now is the time for it. It may not be the time for it for the rest of the world, but it’s time for it for me. That’s why I wanted to call it Then Again. I thought that was a clever way of saying that what was happening then is happening now.

Back in 2006, Crowell was in high cotton. He was coming off a trilogy of albums—The Houston Kid in 2001, Fate’s Right Hand in 2003, The Outsider in 2005—that re-established him as a fearless voice in Americana and attracted new generations of fans drawn to his compassionate storytelling, his detail-laden songwriting, and his eloquent outrage over political injustices. In 2005 he went into Treasure Isle Studios in Nashville to record what would become Then Again. But when he heard the masters, something didn’t feel quite right. The band was smokin’ hot and the songs sounded good, but the album just didn’t move him and he struggled to figure out exactly what was wrong or what was missing. Twenty years later, when he found the album in his vaults, he couldn’t remember exactly what tripped him up. He decided it was finally time, if only because “I heard a record I wasn’t sick of. I was no longer sick of myself. That’s what 20 years will do for you.”

Once lost and now found, Then Again is something the Rodney Crowell of the 2000s could never have predicted but something the Rodney Crowell of the 2020s recognizes instinctively: a work of nuance, insight, and sensitivity that considers death but celebrates life. “I’m trying to understand that this spirit of mine is going to leave this body and go off somewhere else. I’ve got a pretty good idea that it’s going to be someplace good, but I still need to perfect some part of my spiritual journey here before I check out. I can see that in these songs now.”

Rodney Crowell's Then Again is out 6/26 via New West Records. Check the tracklisting followed by "Are You One Of Us" featuring the voice of Guy Clark below. You can pre-order copies on vinyl (or CD) right here. 

Rodney Crowell - Then Again

Side A 

I Won’t Lie

Are You One of Us? (feat. Guy Clark)

If I Could Speak To Leonard

Bring It on Home To Memphis

The Ballad of Artemis and Orion

Side B

Sing Your Heart Out (feat. Kieran Goss & Annie Kinsella)

Whatcha Gonna Do Now #2 (feat. Lyle Lovett & Chely Wright)

The Has-Been Vents His Spleen

40 Winters

Go Light a Candle (feat. Emmylou Harris & Lera Lynn)