Twist of Fate

By Crowell's admission, "It took a couple years to get over the bruise -- but my friendship with Tony became deeper after that. I know that was hard for Tony and Larry to do, and I had a lot of compassion for them. I think it was really important to Tony that I didn't turn away from him."

After leaving MCA, Crowell seemingly dropped out of sight. In reality, he was dealing with a series of intense personal matters, including the drug addiction that afflicted Caitlin, one of his four daughters. "It was during her late teen years, and she'd gotten herself into an absolutely reckless life," he reveals. "Knock on wood, she's going on three years clean and sober, and she's a functioning young woman in the music business, which is an amazing turnaround for her. But I was dealing with some deep stuff, and it made everything else seem so unimportant."

To get through this period, Crowell began writing prose, which eventually led him back to music. The songs he penned for Kid are intensely autobiographical, telling vivid tales of his Houston boyhood. Among the most striking is "I Walk the Line (Revisited)," in which Crowell juxtaposes reminiscences about the moment in 1956 when he first heard the Johnny Cash classic with segments in which Cash belts out the original lyrics over a modified melody.

Getting his former father-in-law to take part in the recording was a ticklish process. "I said to John, 'Man, we just wrote a song,' and he said, 'What?'" Crowell remembers with a chuckle. "I don't know what he was thinking; I don't know what I was thinking. But I said, 'Can you come and sing on it?' And he did. That's when the audacity of what I was asking him to do dawned on me, and it dawned on him, too. He turned to me and said, 'You've got a lot of nerve.'"

Rather than backing down, however, Crowell stood his ground. "Being around him, everybody was always sucking up," he says. "But I always took the reverse attitude, which was, 'Hey, I'm my own man. I'm not gold-digging. I'm not here to kiss your ass.' And I think he always liked that, because there were so many people around yessin' him to death. That spirit gave us a good friendship that lasted long after the marriage to his daughter did. So I said, 'Yeah, you're right. I do have a lot of nerve, changing the melody of your song. But you can do this. And you should do this.' That made him mad, and I think it really added to the song. His performance on that is particularly robust."

Cash's response to the finished product was just as feisty. "I went over to his house and played it, and he said, 'Okay, that's good. But I'm not going to give you half the publishing'" -- meaning Cash wanted to receive all the profits from the song, even though Crowell had written most of it. Crowell was momentarily dumbstruck, but luckily June Carter Cash, Johnny's longtime spouse, rode to the rescue: "She said, 'Johnny, that's a tribute to you, and a damn good one. You stop it!' And he said, 'All right, I'll give him half of it.'"

Last year, after Cash died, Crowell participated in musical salutes to the country icon, even though he was still grappling with grief over the loss of both Johnny and June, who'd preceded her husband to the grave by four months. When asked if the assorted tributes got to the heart of the man or the legend, he answers, "The legend. But his public persona was a large part of who he was."

The same is true of Crowell. He enjoyed making The Notorious Cherry Bombs, which he regards as a "palate cleanser," but he's already writing songs for his next album. The disc is sure to be another deeply personal effort, although he's uncertain what theme will come to the fore. "There's three or four records I want to make, and I could make, at this time, and that's a dilemma," he says. "It's like having a good hand of cards and knowing when to play the right one."

As for how he'll pay for the recording, there's always the bank. "I was pretty confident I'd be able to pay them back, and I did," Crowell says. But this time around, John Grady, the man behind O Brother, Where Art Thou?, who oversees Sony's Nashville operation, will likely provide him with seed money, protecting his checking account for another day.

For that, Crowell's wife is undoubtedly grateful.