The hard work and hard times of Charley Crockett – Inlander

Charley Crockett is almost always working.

“I play two or three times the amount of shows of any of my contemporaries, year in year out,” the folk country singer tells me over the phone. “I”m not even talking shit. It’s just true.”

He’s not complaining either.

“I’m much more comfortable on the road than I am off the road,” says the Texas-born musician who even has a song titled “I’m Workin’.”

In his earlier days, the self-described “well-traveled man” built up his performance muscles by playing acoustic guitar on street corners in New Orleans and under bridges and in subway cars in New York.

“You know, I walked across America,” Crockett says.

For 10 years he thumbed rides, hopped trains, and worked on cannabis farms in Northern California (before the state declared the plant legal). Crockett’s adventures with guitar weren’t limited to the U.S. either. He strummed his six-string in Spain and Morocco, played coffee houses in Denmark, busked in Paris for a year.

He’s been everywhere, man.

The prolific singer — with about a dozen albums to his name since 2015 — has been receiving increased attention over the past three-or-so years. Fellow Texan Willie Nelson (!) phoned Crockett in 2022 to deliver words of praise (!!) and an invitation to join Nelson on some of his Outlaw Music Festival Tour dates (!!!). Of course Crockett accepted. The Americana Music Association already named Crockett Emerging Act of the Year in 2021, and this year he’s up for three Americana awards.

Even outside of the outsider country sphere, ears are perking up. This April, Crockett sat at The Daily Show news desk and explained to guest host Jordan Klepper, “I’m not a cowboy, I’m a cowboy singer. And I just wanna keep singin’ my cowboy songs. And they might sound a lil’ different than some of the old boys.”

It’s easy to mistake Crockett for a rope-riding cowboy. He exclusively dresses in vintage Western wear: Pearl-snap shirts and ’70s blazers, fringed leather jackets, requisite cowboy boots and cowboy hat — or the occasional trucker cap. He accessorizes with chunky silver rings, a big rodeo buckle and maybe smoky sunglasses.

Given his vintage wardrobe, cowpoke sound of yesteryear, and straight-out-of-1964 album art, it’s also easy to mistake Crockett’s work as simply plucked from the past. The first time his tunes graced my ears, I had the same shocked response as when I first heard Amy Winehouse on the radio: “Wait, this is a contemporary singer?! No way!”

Though Crockett’s reverence for dusty country and western records is evident in his sonic and visual style, he’s no ultra-nostalgic traditionalist.

“The idea of the good old days, it’s kind of a myth,” Crockett declares. Though he knows he’s “obviously associated with country music,” he’s not cosplaying a cowboy or viewing a bygone era uncritically. Crockett’s a widely traveled man of this time, in creative conversation with the past while expressing his honest feelings and personal experiences.

Far from a country purist, Crockett applauds artists who’ve stirred up the genre. Two aspects of country music appeal to him most: “I like how innovative they really were,” he says. “Waylon [Jennings] was taking the George-Jones-style country, and he was blending it with the R&B and soul music of the time and mashing them together.”

“All of that stuff is considered classic country gold, you know, of the highest order. But at the time, it was not seen that way. It was very controversial,” says Crockett. “It was confusing to… traditional-minded people. Same thing with Hank Williams.”

Crockett’s love of blending styles shines through his own sound: With his agile backing band, border-town brass melds with honky-tonk piano. Tumbleweed-strewn gunslinger ballads mix with Bayou jazz. When it comes to genres and subgenres, Charley sees no fences.

The second thing Crockett likes most about country music is its storytelling custom. Specifically, he’s drawn to the Southern Gothic style, which he says “would be more like something you would see from Bobbie Gentry [“Ode to Billie Joe”] or a lot of those writers like Faulkner… or Flannery O’Connor.”

Crockett’s distinct spin on Southern Gothic storytelling is evident in his narrative-rich albums studded with pain and heavy themes. Three LPs in particular come to mind:

• THE VALLEY (2019)
  Completed just before undergoing two emergency open-heart surgeries, Crockett opens with the expository line, “I’m from San Benito, Texas,” in a title track that paints a Southern landscape with details like “sugarcane and cotton” located “down a dirty, dusty road” while confronting the “darkness” and “trouble” at play, too.
• WELCOME TO HARD TIMES (2020)
  Another story-heavy album with Southern Gothic themes, the album’s songs are further enlivened by cinematic, interrelated music videos that depict dream-like desert scenes, cryptic characters, and a symbolic, recurring rotary telephone.
• THE MAN FROM WACO (2022)
  The album title alone evokes a legendary tale — and Crockett brings the storytelling to match.

Spokane showgoers have the chance to witness Crockett’s powerful stage presence on July 21 when he plays the Fox Theater. With a playful wink and sparkle-in-his-eye quip, the sharply aware former busker can win over an audience in no time — just ask anyone who caught his high-energy performance at the Knitting Factory in 2022. While Crockett’s having fun on stage and lifting spirits, he also consistently maintains a solemn respect for the depth of sorrow in his songs — both covers and originals — and the very real suffering rooted in the “uniquely American folk” music he loves.

When I ask what instrument sounds saddest to his ear, Crockett contemplates and finally responds, “the human voice.” He tells me that the night before we chatted, a 1971 recording of the gospel song “There’s A Man Going Around Taking Names” brought him to tears as he listened — all alone, on his first Canadian tour — to the voices and claps of the rural Georgia congregation. Crockett uses his own deep voice to create a temporary shelter where people — especially outsiders and hard-working folks — can rest their worries. It’s a role he treats as much as a sacred duty as a mere profession.

Crockett has known hard luck and hard times intimately. His rocky road to bigger spotlights has been pocked by challenges and grief, yet he’s kept up courage to do things his own way. On The Daily Show, he admitted, “I’ve made a habit of telling record executives to, you know, kiss my behind.” But in his heavy-touring lifestyle — which he says is still “so much easier than when I played subway cars” — there’s also softness and bliss.

On New Year’s Day of this year, Crockett became engaged to Taylor Grace, his “girl” of three years. Grace, a wardrobe stylist (who specializes in vintage!), was the one who turned him on to Flannery O’Connor. She also appeared in his Welcome to Hard Times music videos. “Taylor Grace, I knew I loved you the moment I laid eyes on you darlin’,” Charley wrote in his Instagram engagement announcement. The two now share a home base in Austin, as well as a long-haired chihuahua named Billie.

Though Crockett’s clearly at home on the road, it’s heart-warming to know that this hard-working showman who holds and reflects so much pain for strangers indeed has a love-filled nest under the bright stars of Texas, a private place where — when he’s ready — he can hang his (cowboy) hat, rest his head, and even cuddle a small dog.

As he describes these domestic scenes, his song “Don’t Cry” flashes through my mind. On the tune, Crockett warns his romantic interest, “I can’t stand it, but leaving is my business,” but then immediately assures her, “Because I love you / I’m always coming back home.”

Charley Crockett, Drayton Farley • Sat, July 21 at 8 pm • $30-$55 • The Fox Theater •
1001 W. Sprague Ave. • foxtheaterspokane.org