Diamonds & Dirt

For the Brian Robertson album, see Diamonds and Dirt.

"Crazy Baby" redirects here. For the 1960 jazz album by Jimmy Smith, see Crazy! Baby. For the Ozzy Osbourne song, "Crazy Babies", see No Rest for the Wicked (Ozzy Osbourne album).

Diamonds & Dirt is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, released in 1988.^[4][5] His fifth studio album, it was his second release for Columbia Records.^[2] The album was his most successful, achieving RIAA gold certification. All five of its singles reached Number One on the Billboard country charts, setting a record for the most Number One hits from a country album.^[6] In order of release, they were "It's Such a Small World" (a duet with then-wife Rosanne Cash), "I Couldn't Leave You If I Tried", "She's Crazy for Leavin", "After All This Time", and a cover of Buck Owens' "Above and Beyond (The Call of Love)".

Diamonds & Dirt
Studio album by Rodney Crowell
Released	March 30, 1988
Recorded	1987
Studio	Emerald Sound Studios, Nashville, TN
Genre	Country
Length	34:54
Label	Columbia
Producer	Rodney Crowell Tony Brown
Rodney Crowell chronology
Street Language (1986) Diamonds & Dirt (1988) The Rodney Crowell Collection (1989)
Singles from Diamonds & Dirt
"It's Such a Small World" Released: January 1988 "I Couldn't Leave You If I Tried" Released: May 1988 "She's Crazy for Leavin'" Released: September 1988 "After All This Time" Released: January 1989 "Above and Beyond" Released: June 1989

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[2]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[3]

The album was reissued by Columbia Legacy, with three bonus tracks.

Production

Diamonds & Dirt was Crowell's first album recorded entirely in Nashville and the first aimed squarely at a country audience.^[7] It was produced by Tony Brown and Crowell.^[3][8]

Critical reception

The Rolling Stone Album Guide called the album "a stirring treatise on the quest for understanding and balance in a relationship."^[3] No Depression wrote that the songs are "played by a band that, in its day, rivaled the Desert Rose Band and Dwight Yoakam’s backing unit as the tightest pseudo-honky-tonkers in country music."^[9] Reviewing the reissue, The A.V. Club wrote that the album "still sounds pretty good ... especially in light of the sort of unnatural, reverb-laden late-'80s production that makes everything go 'poof'."^[10] Spin deemed it "a traditional country record [on which Crowell] ends ups rocking harder than ever before."^[11]

Track listing

All songs written by Rodney Crowell except where noted.

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Crazy Baby"	Crowell, Will Jennings	3:06
2.	"I Couldn't Leave You If I Tried"		3:17
3.	"She's Crazy for Leavin'"	Crowell, Guy Clark	3:16
4.	"After All This Time"		4:28
5.	"I Know You're Married"		3:31
6.	"Above and Beyond"	Harlan Howard	2:28
7.	"It's Such a Small World" (duet with Rosanne Cash)		3:21
8.	"I Didn't Know I Could Lose You"		3:21
9.	"Brand New Rag"	Crowell, Jennings	3:07
10.	"The Last Waltz"	Crowell, Jennings	5:21
11.	"I've Got My Pride but I Got to Feed the Kids"		2:28A
12.	"It's Lonely Out"		3:40A
13.	"Lies Don't Lie"		3:04A

^AOnly included on Legacy re-issue.

Personnel

• Eddie Bayers – drums
• Barry Beckett – piano, organ
• Rosanne Cash – background vocals
• Rodney Crowell – lead vocals, acoustic guitar
• Glen Duncan – fiddle
• Paul Franklin – steel guitar
• Vince Gill – background vocals
• Russ Kunkel – drums
• Mark O'Connor – fiddle, mandolin
• Michael Rhodes – bass guitar
• Vince Santoro – background vocals
• Preston Smith – harmonica, background vocals
• Steuart Smith – electric guitar^[12]

Charts

Weekly charts Chart (1988–89) Peak position Canadian Country Albums (RPM) 9 US Top Country Albums (Billboard)[13] 8

Year-end charts Chart (1988) Position US Top Country Albums (Billboard)[14] 35 Chart (1989) Position US Top Country Albums (Billboard)[15] 7 Chart (1990) Position US Top Country Albums (Billboard)[16] 61

References

1. AllMusic review
2. Larkin, Colin (2006). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Vol. 2. MUZE. p. 644.
3. The Rolling Stone Album Guide. Random House. 1992. pp. 170–171.
4. "Rodney Crowell | Biography & History". AllMusic.
5. LONGSDORF, AMY. "WITH 'DIAMONDS,' COUNTRY'S RODNEY CROWELL GETS THROUGH THE ROUGH". mcall.com.
6. "Rodney Crowell: Singing From A Dark, Raucous Place". NPR.org.
7. Anon. "Country concert series opens soon." Aiken (SC) Standard 2 Apr 1989: 11
8. "Flashback: Rodney Crowell Sings 'She's Crazy for Leavin" Inside an Airport". Rolling Stone. April 8, 2019.
9. "Rodney Crowell – Diamonds and Dirt". No Depression. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
10. "Rodney Crowell: Diamonds & Dirt". The A.V. Club. 19 April 2002. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
11. "The Last (Album) Roundup". SPIN. SPIN Media LLC. October 31, 1988 – via Google Books.
12. McClain, Buzz (April 23, 2021). "The Eagles' Steuart Smith keeps his rockstar title private". Northern Virginia Magazine. Northern Virginia Magazine. Retrieved September 25, 2024.
13. "Rodney Crowell Chart History (Top Country Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
14. "Top Country Albums – Year-End 1988". Billboard. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
15. "Top Country Albums – Year-End 1989". Billboard. Retrieved December 27, 2020.
16. "Top Country Albums – Year-End 1990". Billboard. Retrieved December 27, 2020.

• Diamonds & Dirt (cassette liner notes). Rodney Crowell. Columbia Records. 1988. 44076.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)