Crowell Has Found Peace of Change : Music: With a new album out and a turbulent marriage breakup behind him, the singer says his songs now reflect an inner calmness. He’s at the Crazy Horse tonight.

About 16 months ago, during his last appearance at the Crazy Horse, Rodney Crowell tried out a wealth of new material in an acoustic setting. The idea was to give the songs a test run in front of a live audience before taking them into a recording studio. Now, those songs have coalesced into his latest album, “Let the Picture Paint Itself,” and he’ll be back at the Crazy Horse tonight, playing them with a brand new band.

On the phone last week from the Grand Canyon, where he was relaxing with his daughters, ages 5 and 12, before a string of California dates, Crowell said he found the feedback he got from that audience to be most useful.

“It worked well. When I played (the songs), I figured out what was wrong with them. I rewrote a couple. I scrapped a few and then went home and wrote some new ones. It was a very successful experiment for me in terms of what I learned about the songs.”

“Let the Picture Paint Itself” turns out to be one of Crowell’s most poetic and satisfying albums.

His two previous releases, “Keys to the Highway” and “Life Is Messy,” were marked by dark emotional turmoil that many felt reflected the breakup of his 12-year marriage to Rosanne Cash (who, ironically enough, also is in Orange County tonight, playing at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano). But the new record exudes the spirit of a man at peace with himself.

Crowell acknowledged that the album expresses a calmer state of mind. “I think the personal side of this album was not as much about the darkness as it was about resolving all of that stuff and moving on. I would say that the feeling on the new album is resolved, and resolution usually brings some form of happiness.

“Normally in the past,” he added, “when I would get away from one of my records and then get back to it and listen to it, all the things that were wrong with it would glare at me. On this one, I find myself focusing on what I like about it instead of what I don’t like.”

And what does he like?

“I like me on the record more,” he answered. “I think I’m just starting to be capable of what I want to do as a vocalist. I think my songwriting matured and developed more quickly than my performing did. On the last couple of records, I’ve only just begun to be satisfied that my performing self is starting to function at the same level as the songwriter.”

He also said that--though “talking about songwriting for me is like doing card tricks on the radio”--he feels he is continuing to grow as a songwriter too.

“I’m in a new phase right now. I think I went through a period, say through ‘Keys to the Highway’ and ‘Life is Messy,’ when I wrote about my interior self. I kind of went inside and wrote about the landscape and the emotions on the inside of me. Now I’ve done that and I’m getting back to some of the descriptive writing I was doing much earlier. I’ve come full circle in a way.

“When I was in my late 20s, I was really into experimenting with description with songs like ‘Stars on the Water’ and ‘Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This.’ Now I’ve kind of come back around. There’s something subtle going on for me right now and I can’t wait to see what it yields ultimately.”

The songs he wrote when he was younger were, he said, almost pure inspiration, and he has matured, he feels he has become more conscious of his craft. “Somebody once said, and I think it applies to me: ‘I have learned to do consciously what I used to do unconsciously.’ And I find that the conscious stuff is as powerful as the other. It is still coming from the unconscious; I’m just consciously getting it and turning it into something.”

After scoring No. 1 singles, winning a Grammy (for “After All This Time”) and writing such songs as “Shame on the Moon” and “Till I Gain Control Again” that clearly have stood the test of time, what next?

“I would say something that you may find strange,” he replied. “I don’t think I discovered my market until about three months ago. It was almost as though somebody lifted a veil.

“My market is the country audience, definitely. That is what became very clear to me. It was like when they say a writer finds his voice. I suddenly knew what I’m supposed to be saying to people. It was as though I’d spent the last 15 years not really knowing what I was doing. It was almost as though I had never connected with the audience that I had been writing for all that time. My audience is the audience that is interested in songs. The country market is about songs and storytelling.”

* Rodney Crowell sings tonight at 7 and 10 at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow Drive, Santa Ana. $27.50. (714) 549-1512.