RODNEY CROWELL For the veteran songwriter, patience is the key to creative success   In 2010, Rodney Crowell began the album that would become Tarpaper Sky, recording half a dozen songs before getting sidetracked with other projects: Kin, a collection of songs he wrote with memoirist Mary Karr, and last year’s Grammy-winning Old Yellow Moon, a collaboration with longtime friend Emmylou Harris. “Those beautiful women got my mind off my work,”... 

KIM RICHEY On her latest effort, the acclaimed singer-songwriter highlights harmonies    Kim Richey has been on the move—Colorado, Boston, Washington, South America, Europe and London, where she spent three years. She returned to Nashville for the third time last summer to make her new album, Thorn in My Heart. Richey’s first venture to Music City after college included a stint as a cook at the famed Bluebird Café where she glimpsed singer-songwriters... 

RODNEY CROWELL  A unique teaming with poet Mary Karr brings it all back home   After more than three decades, 13 solo albums and collaborations with some of music’s greatest names, Rodney Crowell knows a born songwriter when he sees one—even if that particular songwriter has never written a song. When he read poet and memoirist Mary Karr’s 1995 book The Liars’ Club, he couldn’t help but see the parallels between himself and the author—they...