Tarpaper Sky is the fourteenth solo studio album by Rodney Crowell. Crowell co-produced the album with long-time collaborator Steuart Smith and Dan Knobler. Tarpaper Sky follows Crowell's Grammy-winning duet album with Emmylou Harris, Old Yellow Moon and is his first release on New West. Tarpaper Sky is made up of entirely original Crowell compositions. Doug Freeman, Austin Chronicle, credits Crowell for "balancing ballads and bar room stomps ... with his characteristic sense of autobiographical detail and precarious mortality."