Can "The Houston Kid" make Rodney Crowell the "comeback kid?" After all, it's been five years since Crowell released his last solo album.

Whether it does or not, at this stage in his long career, Crowell, 50, most certainly is content with the results.

Crowell says in an interview from his Nashville-area home that he was searching for "self respect" in making the album.

"Seriously. I needed to make a record that I liked you know. I was the audience for this one. Just truthfully, evaluating my career as I'm wont to do - I''m probably my harshest critic. My legacy as a songwriter was pretty solid. I was proud of it. I had done good work."

"I had felt that my recording artistry was just pretty spotty. I thought at times there were spikes (resulting) in things that were pretty good."

With "The Houston Kid," "I didn't feel that anything had the net potential of anything when I started. I took a hard bite on that and didn't let go until I had my own self-respect with it. That was my own clear cut idea I had when I was making this record."

The 11-song album contains a mix of country, acoustic-based songs, bluesy spoken word and a touch of rock. In other words, pretty much the type of musical potpourri associated with Crowell.

"The Houston Kid" also is a combination of character-oriented songs, usually about down-and-outers suffering from drugs or pulling off crimes and relationship-focused songs.

And that was no accident either, according to Crowell.

"I was looking for to establish myself as a storyteller as opposed to just a pop performer. I always felt underneath it all that was where my heart lies."

"I had discovered awhile back that memory was a poignant source of storytelling for me. When I actually got the process right - writing songs from memory, basically real life events, true stories - they are more poignant. They were of more interest to me."

In fact, many songs on "The Houston Kid" are based on people Crowell knew growing up in Houston. An only child, his parents had moved around before finally settling along the channel in Houston in a section called Jacinto City. Crowell grew up in a working class family where his father delivered ice.

"It was actually built on the battle grounds where Texas won its independence against Mexico. It was a post-World War II housing project, a low-income housing project. It housed the menial construction workers and labor force that worked along the ship channel. Houston has its own hand dug, 50-mile long ship channel that created a blue collar outlet. My parents were sons and daughters of sharecrop farmers (with a) seventh grade education. They went there post Depression because there was work to be had. This section of Houston was made up of migrants, people coming off the (unemployment) lines to find gainful employment along the ship channel."

"This section of Houston came with a lot of violence, a lot of great people and a lot of crime."

"That culture consumed music with great authenticity, namely Hank Williams and Merle Haggard and Chuck Berry and Elvis. We kids of the '60's (had) The Beatles and the Stones came along and Dylan. Things really got cooking."

Crowell, writing a book about his time in Houston from 1955-65, has "very positive" thoughts about the area.

"There was a wealth of characters surrounding me. I have very fine memories of it because of the absolute humor. Dire circumstances sometimes create great humor. I look time at that particular time in my life with a particular kind of gratitude. There's gratitude in my attitude."

"I was down there recently, and it's not that different. Television is the difference."

Why the focus on Houston and life from four decades ago?

"I had to explore writing love songs and looking for the new slant on love songs. I've done that yada yada. Hey gag me with another love song. I just didn't want to go there. And also when I was writing 'Banks of the Old Bandera,' I snapped on pretty early on. Writing memory is very poignant when you get it right. As an artist, I'm more concerned with poignancy. If I went to the movies, I prefer 'Fried Green Tomatoes' to 'Armageddon.' Give me poignancy. I don't need that other crap."

If you want stories of working class life in Houston, check out such songs as "Telephone Road" and "Topsy Turvy."

"Telephone Road" describes childhood memories. Crowell got the impetus to write the song because of friend and fellow Texan Guy Clark, who wrote a song about Crowell's family, "Black Diamond Strings."

Crowell says Clark misplaced the location of ice houses. "That was when I got the idea," says Crowell. "I got to write a song about Telephone Road. ' It was so vivid in my recollection. It was from that conversation with Guy."

"Topsy Turvy" is definitely autobiographical. "That's specific about being an only child in a domestically (violent) household. I needed a striped suit to referee that one."

Crowell does not look back upon the difficult family life and childhood with any sense of negativity.

"It was the only one I had. I don't look at it particularly difficult now. Given what my parents evolution was and how they finally dug themselves out of that dynamic that they had, they eventually came to a good place in their lives and individually. I don't see it as difficult so much. I have a certain amount of gratitude for how that was because I got some good songs out of it."

A bit of Johnny Cash - Crowell's father-in law for the years he was married to Rosanne Cash - shows up on "I Walk the Line (Revisited)," a tribute to childhood when the Man in Black's "I Walk the Line" inspired a small Houston boy.

Crowell recorded the song in 1996.

The story behind it "is just like it sounds. Early one morning in 1956, I was going fishing with my grandfather. I was sitting in the back (of his car). Out of that chrome, big fat radio, 'I Walk the Line' came on, and it just knocked me silly. I was just 5 1/2 years old. I thought this was the most authentic, original thing I'd ever heard of in my life. The 700 songs on the radio that had played before it, I didn't even hear."

"The experience was so vivid as I became a young adult and started writing songs, I've got to write a song about that experience. One day, I finally did."

"I had a chorus, a melody. This can't be one of those sing songy melodies. That's when I realized the words to the original worked with the chorus. I called John. I said, 'You don't have to do nothing but sing on it.'"

Cash came over, heard the song and was not too pleased apparently.

"Man, you have a lot of nerve changing my melody. I had been innocent up until that point. It was true. It was kind of like asking Da Vinci to paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa. I regrouped."

Cash did his lines, and Crowell was satisfied. "I think it's a pretty inspired performance."

This was not the first time Crowell released the song. At the urging of an executive at his former label, Warner, the song was put out on a lark as a single.

"I said, 'you guys could put this out. If you happen have a hit with this, I'm not going to give you a record to go with this. I don't want to use this song at this particular time to further some sort of career business.'"

Crowell says he told the Warner exec, "'Wouldn't it be great if someone put out a song, had a hit on it and didn't have an album?' Then, nobody played it, so it didn't matter,"

Crowell, who produced "The Houston Kid," sometimes with cohort Steuart Smith, wanted "a lot of live performance" on the album. "I just wanted to make sure it didn't have that slicked-off pop sound. That slicked off Nashville cleaned-up-to-the-point where it loses its soul. I really wanted to avoid that."

Crowell's music may have been in his genes with grandparents and other family members playing. His father was a musician on the side as well. At the age of 11, he recruited young Rodney to play drums in his band.

He went to college at Stephen F. Austin in Texas for a little while, but continued pursuing music. In 1972, he headed to Nashville, living like a pauper while trying to make a go of it and making acquaintences with Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Billy Joe Shaver and Micky Newbury.

By 1975, he became a member of Emmylou Harris' Hot band, often being compared to her late partner, Gram Parsons.

Crowell contributed numerous songs to Harris, including "Bluebird Wine" and "Til I Gain Control Again."

Harris became aware of Crowell by hearing a tape of his songs. She flew him to Virginia, where she was recording.

They hooked up again in Texas, and Harris gave him a ticket to Los Angeles where he lived for the next seven years.

"I liked everything about her," says Crowell. "She's a poet, and she's funny, and she's passionate, and she's loyal, and she's sweet, and she's beautiful. She's (like a) sister. She's a good soul. She's everything that people ought to be."

A few years after joining Harris, Crowell left to pursue his own muse. His first album was "I Ain't Livin' Long Like This." He also formed his backing band, the Cherry Bombs, which includes such notables as Vince Gill, Tony Brown, Emory Gordy Jr. and Richard Bennett.

Crowell's album sold little, but eventually led to recognition as a songwriter. Waylon Jennings had a hit with the title track. The Oak Ridge Boys scored with "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight," the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band did the same with "An American Dream."

While songs Crowell released as singles may have been or eventually been hits for others, he barely made a dent on the charts. "Ashes By Now," his third single, for example, hit the lowly chart position of 78 on Billboard's country charts in 1980. The song is now a hit for Lee Ann Womack.

Much later, "Please Remember Me" didn't do much for Crowell, but it sure did when Tim McGraw recorded it.

A decade plus ago, there was little expectation that Crowell would at one point rule the charts based on his lack of success commercially. Of his first eight singles, the highest charting song was "Stars on the Water" (number 30) in 1981.

But then came a 1988 duet with his then wife Rosanne Cash, "It's Such a Small World." It was his first number one song.

But it would not be his last. Pulled from his biggest selling album ever, "Diamonds & Dirt," (which is being reissued in February as part of Sony's American Milestone series), number ones continued for Crowell with "I Couldn't Leave You If I Tried," "She's Crazy for Leavin'," "After All This Time" and "Above and Beyond."

Five number one hits. The first time a male country singer ever accomplished the feat. Since then, Clint Black is the only other artist to match Crowell.

When asked if he had any expectations "Diamonds & Dirt" would do so well, Crowell says, "None. Just another day at the office. You can never plan. I thought it was special because I had so much fun at the time. I wasn't particularly attached to any outcome, nor did I expect the outcome. That was a pleasant surprise."

One would have thought Crowell would be ecstatic that after years of toil, he had "made" it.

In fact, he considers it the worst time of his life. His wife had her own career going with much success throughout the '80's, but the sudden success pushed Crowell on the road and put a further strain on their up-and-down marriage.

"It just was not a good time. The making of it, leading up to, it. It just so happened that the after the period that came afterwards was pretty difficult. I wasn't in a position to enjoy what was going on for a lot of different personal reasons."

"Hindsight, I'm definitely okay with it. Had I been really happy and enjoying the moment, I might have gotten self-congratulatory and satisfied and might not be doing the work I'm doing now. I think things always work out."

The marriage "came apart because of the time and energy I was devoting (to my career). But you know what, it would have anyway. That's a good thing because it moved both of us onto other things."

Cash married producer John Leventhal and lives in New York. Crowell married Claudia Church, who had an album out on Warner in 2000, which did little. She also is a model, painter, actress and writer.

Crowell never again reached the level of "Diamonds & Dirt," although he enjoyed other hits with "Many a Long & Lonesome Highway," "If Looks Could Kill "And What Kind of Love."

He switched from Columbia to Tony Brown's MCA for a few albums, 1994's "Let the Picture Paint Itself" and "Jewel of the South" the following year.

Crowell was not too happy with his time there, feeling he made a concerted effort to have a radio hit, which didn't pan out at all.

Next stop was a return cup of coffee with Warner, which resulted in no album released.

"The problem with the record I was making for Warner was that it was the same old thing, making a record for a record company, making sure they have singles, making sure they have marketing tools," says Crowell. "I realized that wasn't what I wanted to say. My heart wasn't into that. (Label head) Jim Ed Norman, being a really good man, let me go off on my own. I realized it was an opportunity for me to do the work I wanted to do that was in my heart instead of walking that schizo line of being an artist and fulfilling someone's commercial needs."

In between his own albums, Crowell also helped form a rock group The Cicadas, which had one record to its credit.

Crowell began working on "The Houston Kid" in 1999 on his own dollar. He had finished music before shopping it around.

He considered a major label.

"I realized that with them, they were going 'we like this music,' but I was realizing that in the corporate world, they were willing to sign me and put my record out based on my track record as opposed to what I had actually done. It wasn't with a passion for what I had done. It was because I have a name. With these Sugar Hill folks, they were laughing and having fun and talking about the music and the songs and actually giving me some input for how to even go farther into independence. I realized this is fun. These guys are having fun. They're not worried about all of the things that a corporate record company does. Quarterly profits were way way down the line, compared to a good piece of work."

"There were other indies I was considering, but then something else happened, which was the Sugar Hill people started showing signs of having more money. Let's be honest here. It's not all altruistic. They had some money to back up their giggles."

Crowell, who is moving back to LA from Nashville, seems satisfied with "The Houston Kid" in having made the album on his own terms.

When asked about his current status, Crowell says, he was "perfectly okay with it. When I was not okay with it, it was when I tried to pander to the commerciality (of the music), and at the end of the day, when nothing really happened on the commercial front, and I was left with a record that wasn't really what I could do as an artist. When you start chasing that radio format, you don't even have your own self-respect. I don't blame it on anybody else. I have to take responsibility for my choices and myself."

"If nobody played it, and nobody bought it, I've made something that I'm proud of it," Crowell says of "The Houston Kid." "To me, that's a bigger success."