With four albums released in the past two years - the most recent a double album titled MUSIC CITY USA - Charley Crockett is on a roll, as prolific and industrious as anyone in country music at present. The icing on the cake was his prestigious ‘Emerging Act of the Year’ award at the recent Americanafest Awards Show at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, where he performed live on that hallowed stage. He describes his sound as Gulf & Western, incorporating soul and blues alongside his classic country output. His latest album is testament to that with a rich, soulful, horn-filled sound on a number of the tracks, while others deliver simple old-time country and vintage rhythm and blues. Twenty years into a nomadic career that has included busking on street corners and homelessness, Charley Crockett’s time has arrived and he’s shifting more merchandise, and selling out more and more shows on his journey. He’s also just about the most engaging and enthusiastic guy to chat with as we discovered when we caught up with him again recently.
When we last spoke in 2020 on the release of WELCOME TO HARD TIMES, your parting works were ‘they better watch out in country music, because I’m just getting started.’ True to your word, things seem to be going good for you.
Every day that I’m able to play shows and put these records out, it has got to be good. So far, I haven’t made a big enough mistake or said the wrong thing for somebody to get in my way. We’re playing in Boston tonight and it’s all sold out. So, things are good.
Is the vaccination controversy adding uncertainty to your tour?
Things are all over the place over here at the moment. Some nights are selling out as soon as we announce the shows and other places are a bit weirder. With the ideological and political situation some people are afraid with some of the things that have been happening here in America. Unfortunately, the vaccination issue has been made political over here and so people with different ideologies and others who are just nervous might not want to come out. The policy varies from venue to venue. Sometimes it’s the promoter who calls the shots, sometimes it’s the artists and sometimes it’s the moms and pops. It’s complicated and widely variant.
What is the atmosphere like at the shows, having been starved of live music for so long?
Overall, the audience excitement is the highest I’ve ever seen and that’s not just for me. People have been going for so long without seeing a live show that you kind of forget what it is all about. I can’t get by if I can’t play on a real stage and people feel that same way when they make it to a show. Maybe they’re nervous with all that’s happening, but when they get there, I think all of that trouble goes away and people remember why they come out to shows in the first place. The idea is to just forget your trouble at a show, I know I forget mine.
It’s only just over twelve months since we last spoke and since then you’ve recorded and released 10 FOR SLIM: CHARLEY CROCKETT SINGS JAMES HAND and followed it with a double album MUSIC CITY USA. What was the thinking behind recording a double album?
When we go into the studio, we try to record a lot, I’d rather have a lot of stuff to pull from than not enough. Initially, we were going to put this album out with ten to twelve songs. We were going to go with that and save the extra songs that we had recorded. I knew that this year, with so few people releasing records last year, there’s a lot of records coming out right now. I thought, let’s just give them everything that we recorded, so let’s do a 45rpm double LP that is the highest quality you can spin on a turntable. That gives my audience more songs for their money, especially for my folks that like to buy vinyl. A twelve-inch LP that spins at 45rpm is the highest quality you can get. Also, knowing that this would be my tenth record, I basically wanted it to be a special product and something really cool. When I buy CDs and boxsets, like the recordings that Chess Records made back in the 50s and 60s, I can buy a boxset at some of the resale stores with maybe six to ten CDs and get a lot more songs for my money. So, with MUSIC CITY USA I thought ‘let’s give them all sixteen songs’ for the cost of a single album.
Did you have all the players in the studio recording?
Everybody was present except the pedal steel. They piped in the pedal steel by Nathan Fleming, everything else was recorded in Georgia.
Having nailed the classic country sound on WELCOME TO HARD TIMES, you reintroduced the horn section on a number of tracks on the new album such as I Need Your Love, This Foolish Game and I Won’t Cry. Tell me about that.
That was very important to me because WELCOME TO HARD TIMES was a hardcore gothic country record, which I’m very proud of. The ‘Gulf and Western’ sound is my version of country music and it is important to me. Sure, I’m a country singer, but the New Orleans aspect, the soul and R’n’B is also part of who I am. I don’t want to get too far away from that and I make sure that sound is always with me.
As always, the artwork on the album cover is striking. You get the feeling that you know exactly how the album is going to sound from the cover. That appears to be very important to you.
I want the album cover to work in the same way that I want the song titles to really mean something. I learned to dress up and present myself in the street. That comes from a hard background of learning how to make money on a street corner. When you see my album covers shining like that, you’re looking at a street guy who learned how to present himself.
I get the impression that the album, though titled MUSIC CITY USA, does not only relate to Nashville. Am I correct?
Exactly, it’s a wider picture. I play in Nashville a lot and do a lot of business out of there. I’ve never lived there and will never live on that side of the Mississippi. The title is not a dig at Nashville, it’s a commentary on the people trying to come into that town and trying to make something of themselves, moving from Brooklyn or wherever. It’s like Justin Townes Earle said when asked if he had advice for a young person moving to Nashville, he said ‘my advice is don’t move to Nashville, go anywhere else’. I’m very grateful for the fact that the business has come back in Nashville because without it I probably would not be doing what I’m doing right now. There’s a resurgence in independent country music and Americana, and even the large commercial pop machine that’s also come around. Back in the 90s people would have never have seen that coming. Country music belongs to everybody, the title could be about anywhere.
There are a number of standout tracks on the album for me, a lot of honest writing also. The song The World Just Broke My Heart comes to mind. Is that from personal situation or social and environmental issues?
It’s very personal. When I wrote the title song from WELCOME TO HARD TIMES, I wasn’t writing about the pandemic, I was writing about what I was seeing. It’s the same thing with The World Just Broke My Heart. If you listen to the words, it’s a man going through the trials and tribulations of his life. If it also finds itself relevant to society, I got lucky, I guess.
I’m hearing a lot of Buddy Holly on Lies And Regrets.
I really appreciate that. If it sounds like Buddy Holly, it has got to have something to do with Waylon Jennings because they were right there together.
As someone who has survived twenty years in your career, do you harbour any regrets?
No, I don’t have any regrets. This record that you’re hearing, it’s just me. The major labels and star-making type people, maybe even sometimes blindly, they’ve done me a huge favour by staying out of my way. I knew twenty years ago that I was taking the long way and look what that’s given me. It’s given me the situation I’m in now and I’m not sure of anyone else doing it this way.
The closing track is Skip a Rope which was a hit for Henson Cargill in 1967. It’s powerful lyrics touch on racism and spousal abuse but many listeners may well think it’s a Charley Crockett original, as it’s typical of much of your writing.
That’s an old deal. Hank Williams transformed country music. Nobody knew that his first song on the radio was four years old. That’s folk music man, that’s the tradition. Literally nothing has changed since Skip A Rope was recorded back then, I might even wonder if we’re going in the wrong direction since that song was recorded. I included Skip A Rope partly because, like Henson Cargill, I walked the road to get to where I am now.
I sense that you’re attracting younger audiences to your shows as your career progresses and introducing them to real country music.
Yes, the big difference has been the younger audiences and these are growing fast. There’s a big difference between what Johnny Cash thought country music meant and what the commercial pop country world thinks. One of them stood up fiercely to the man, the other bowed down to the man. Young people are starting to listen more to the independent country because it’s standing up and not bowing down.
Interview by Declan Culliton