Rodney Crowell may have welcomed Marshall Chapman and Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) to his March 20 show at the legendary Birchmere, Alexandria, Va., but his efforts were clearly for the "every man" in the audience.

Dressed nattily in a dark suit and tie with crisp white dress shirt, the much-honored member of the Nashville Songwriters' Hall of Fame strolled onto the stage -- decorated like a casual living area with a standing lamp and small desk -- as the near capacity audience thundered its hello.

"Welcome to the 'Chinaberry Sidewalks' tour," Rodney told the crowd, pausing as an audience member yelled out his praise for the memoir. "Thank you. I was fishing for that."

The joke, of course, was that Rodney didn't have to hope the audience would compliment his work. Spirits ran high whether Rodney was singing, telling stories or joking with the audience.

"We're going to have a great time tonight: I can tell," he said as he opened the show with his hit 'Jewel of the South.' "Audience participation is encouraged."

As Rodney sang his way through the set, he often paused to talk about the music. "This is a great opportunity," Rodney tells the Boot. "I can really tell the audience what is behind some of these songs."

It was clear through the set that Rodney spent an abundant amount of time and energy crafting the show that would meld the two mediums into a compelling performance.

At one point when writing the book, Rodney had gone to Livingston, Mont. and had "extended conversations with writers to discuss the pros and cons of reading" during the concert. "I had never done a reading tour before," he says.

What Rodney discovered in the conversations and through early performances before select groups was that he could weave the stories through the sets. "By the time I had done it a few times, I had confidence that the images and the stories and the songs all worked together in a certain way," he says.

The result was often very personal. Before singing 'Grandma Loved That Old Man,' Rodney shared how his grandfather told his mother and grandmother that he was taking the young boy for a haircut. The barber shop was next to Rodney's grandfather's favorite bar. Rodney told the story, painting a vivid scene that included the smell of liquor, stale cigarette smoke, cheap perfume and the dim glow of neon, that was interrupted when his mother and grandmother burst through the door to find the pair.

Stories of tent revivalists prodding his mother into a Grand Mal seizure as they tried to drive the devil (preceding the song 'Closer to Heaven,'), a good friend's acceptance of rapidly approaching death due to cancer (told before he sang 'Still Learning How to Fly') and the last bloody fight between his parents ('Ain't Livin' Long Like This') were told with fond sentimentality, despite some of the dour highlights.

The reason he could so comfortably tell the often harsh tales, Rodney told the audience, is that he knew how the "story would turn out."

Indeed, one of the last stories Rodney told from the memoir was the story of how he introduced his mother to Roy Acuff, her idol, whose long-ago concert was the catalyst for her meeting her future husband, Rodney's father.

After the conclusion of his parents' story and the formal show, Rodney played audience requests including 'I Wish It Would Rain,' and 'It's Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long,' which he wrote with Vince Gill when he was part of Rodney's Notorious Cherry Bombs. Rodney also sang a tune from a new album he will soon record.

After inviting Marshall on stage to perform her song 'I Love Everybody' -- during which she told a hilarious story about the notoriously aggressive Washington, D.C.-area drivers -- he joined her on stage.

"Hey, it's up to you," he said as the audience called for more and more music. "I can go all night." With Rodney on stage, the audience clearly could, too.

Rodney is on the 'Chinaberry Sidewalk Tour.' His next concert is scheduled for March 22 in Charlotte, N.C. For more concert information, check here.

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