June 3, 2022
Rock Crown is 25 today.
Records can age like people do. One day you might wake up, look in the mirror, and not like what you see. A few years later, same mirror, same face, and you find something worth loving again. So it goes. (Right, Mr. Vonnegut?) Do you ever ask yourself, Are you still you, in there, somewhere?
Recording in New Orleans changed my life. I can still taste that city on my skin, the kaleidoscope of hidden corners and southern gothic grandeur, the history, camaraderie, and endless opportunity for discovery, the Zydeco cowboys in the woods and brass bands in the streets—goldfish swallowing, indulgent, and otherworldly. I made some lifelong friends. The city showed me a glimpse of its glimmering soul—and laid bare my own. My experience there galvanized the way I look at the world, the way I see music, and why I still love whom I love.
There’s too much to cover in just one post, and this offering is only the opening salvo. I’ll be tapping back into “RC time” a lot over the next few months, as I take another hard look in the mirror.
For now, here’s a never-released outtake—"The New Blues”—from those Kingsway sessions in NOLA, recorded late one night in the living room of one of the most magical musical places on the planet.
We still stay up late.
Yours,
JR
Photos: Danny Clinch
Summer of '97 I was anticpating going off to my freshman year of college, and as a parting gift my brother handed me a cassette of RC. I fell in love with music because of that $5.98 gift. It got me through the best and worst times in college. JR... that cassette tape is beat up and wore out now, but that music you all created never wears out. When I boast about the band to my peers, my response is always the same. "Go listen to the album Rockcrown"
I would LOVE a 25th anniversary re-issue of RC! Still one of my favorite and most formative albums after all these years.