Crowell offers "The Twenty-One Song Salute"

The song, which features Tyler Bryant, appears on his next record, "Airline Highway," coming Aug. 29 on New West Records.

Crowell has also announced his initial tour dates in support of "Airline Highway." Launching Oct. 1 at Largo in Los Angeles, the tour will feature stops at The City Winery in New York, The Heights Theater in Crowell's hometown of Houston and The Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.. The Secret Sisters, Thomas Csorba, and William Elliott Whitmore will appear as special guests on select dates.

Crowell teams up with fans in "The Twenty-One Song Salute" contest. As seen in a behind-the-scenes video featured on the contest homepage, Crowell shares how the song emerged —"like 21 postcards" from the heart—each full of memory and meaning.

For 21 days, fans will get daily clues tied to lyrics, riffs or visuals and try to guess the mystery song. With limited guesses and more points for fewer hints, it's a fun mix of music and Rodney Crowell Crowell pops in with video hints along the way.

Crowell said, "Here's a hint: There's pieces of 21 songs buried in the narrative. The first recording studio in which I sang into a microphone was JD Miller's Studio in Crowley, La., which is where Cléoma Falcon, the first woman to record Cajun/Zydeco music in the late twenties, was discovered. As an east Houston teenager, I'd often sneak across the Texas/Louisiana line to listen to The Boogie Kings play their brand of soul at the Big Oaks Club near the town of Vinton. My love of Cajun patois began when I worked summer construction jobs with migrant workers who'd headed west from the Louisiana lowlands looking for better paying jobs in Houston's oil industry. I stole bits and pieces from 21 different songs to make my love of swamp-pop-soul known."

"Airline Highway" began when Crowell met Bryant, a young guitarist and producer whose band, The Shakedown, have toured with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Guns n' Roses, and AC/DC,.

"He's one of the most impressive young men I've met in a long time," Crowell said. "As soon as I met him, I thought, 'let's go.' We immediately started going back and forth between my home studio and his, making demos and talking about what we wanted to do."

A few months later, they packed up a truckload of gear to make the journey down to his Trina Shoemaker's remote Dockside Studio, in Maurice, La.. "It's right at the place where nowhere becomes now here," Crowell saidd. "It's got a great vibe, and the band all lived under the same roof. The beautiful Vermilion River is nearby. We thought with any luck we'd get eaten by alligators."

The band rarely doing more than two or three takes of any particular song. "There's a romance to the swamp, the semi-tropical climate. We put it to good use, even if it was just me romanticizing my connection to Louisiana," Crowell said.

Tour dates are:
Oct. 1 - Los Angeles, CA - Largo #
Oct. 21 - Pittsburgh, PA - City Winery *
Oct. 22 - Phoenixville, PA - The Colonial Theatre *
Oct. 23 - Washington, DC - Lincoln Theatre *
Oct. 25 - Westerly, RI - United Theatre *
Oct. 26 - New York, NY - City Winery *
Oct. 28 - Richmond, VA - Tin Pan #
Nov. 7 - Houston, TX - Heights Theatre ^
Nov. 9 - Dallas, TX - The Kessler ^
Nov. 11 - New Orleans, LA - Chickie Wah Wah (A Benefit for the New Orleans Musician's Clinic) #
Nov. 13 - Montgomery, AL - Montgomery PAC *
Nov. 14 - Decatur, AL - Princess Theater #
Nov. 15 - Atlanta, GA - Center Stage *
Nov. 18 - Madison, WI - Atwood Music Hall +
Nov. 19 - Iowa City, IA - Englert Theatre +
Nov. 20 - St. Paul, MN - Fitzgerald Theater *
Nov. 22 - Chicago, IL - Old Town School of Folk Music *
March 13 - 20 2026 - Miami, FL - Cayamo Cruise 2026

* With guests The Secret Sisters
^ With guest Thomas Csorba
+ With guest William Elliott Whitmore
# no support