Mr. Crockett’s certainly on a roll these days, albums tumbling out of him like coins from a fruit machine which just hit the jackpot. What’s more is that Crockett has hit the jackpot with the majority of his releases (eleven in seven years) which is quite astonishing. There is no let up on quality control despite the conveyor belt like delivery.

While his mainly self penned albums (The Valley, Welcome To Hard Times, Music City USA) show him to be a quality writer and performer bringing country traditions fully up to date, Crockett has paid tribute to these traditions with a series of cover albums under the Lil’ G.L. Presents banner. While the third of these was a collection of James Hand songs, the first and second were themed (Honky Tonk Jubilee and Blue Bonanza) and Jukebox Charley returns to this format with Crockett picking a selection of fairly obscure country songs (despite a stellar line up of writers behind them), all given a stellar makeover.

The title song is a Johnny Paycheck cover and one can’t help wonder if Crockett chose it purely because he shares a forename with the song’s protagonist. Whatever, it’s a fine hook on which to hang the remainder of the songs on as one can imagine most of them wafting from a honky tonk jukebox with Crockett and his Blue Drifters giving most of the songs an attractive 1960s country pop delivery. Delivered in the middle of the album, Jukebox Charley is the fulcrum here although one might have expected it to be the first song as Crockett settles into his bar seat and tells the bartender of his woes. In his cups, music is a mixture of salvation and sorrow and the album follows suit. Several of the songs feature the demon drink, be it with some abandon on the upbeat Battle With The Bottle or the tearful George Jones song, Out Of Control. Affairs of the heart are, of course, in evidence with Make Way For A Better Man, a Willie Nelson song written by Cy Coben, coming across as an alpha male declaration of superiority as the singer snatches his best friend’s girl. Porter Wagoner’s spooky Heartbreak Affair (written by Kay Adams) is a fractured and fragile set up with Crockett’s distorted voice offset by an angelic chorus, the singer just one step away from being incarcerated in a rubber room. And then, there’s that final calamity, death. Tom T. Hall’s I Hope It Rains At My Funeral is a grand narrative of a hardscrabble life with Mickey Raphael like harmonica running throughout it and the final line is the killer. Six Foot Under carries on a theme that you’re only safe once you’re dead and buried and does so with a finely detailed country hop and a skip.

While all of the album is a delight, two songs stand out. Where Have All The Honest People Gone, originally sung by Roger Miller and written by Dennis Linde (who also wrote Elvis’ Burning Love), finds Crockett subtly changing the title (originally it was Where Have All The Average People Gone but Crockett reckons that most average folk just have to be honest) and delivering it in a glorious country pop arrangement which reminds one of John Hartford’s Gentle On My Mind. Even better is is Crockett’s version of Jerry Reed’s I Feel For You. Here Reed’s swampy song is given a soulful delivery with echoes of Solomon Burke, while the guitars invoke a more psychedelic folk sound not a million miles removed from the modal structures of bands like the Pentangle.

You can sum up the album in one song present here. Lonely In Person Tonight is a very obscure Tom T. Hall song about a singer whose name is up in lights but who finds himself somewhat adjacent to Jukebox Charley in that he is listening to folk enjoy his songs on the bar’s jukebox but has no one to share this with. With tons of heartbreak and a fulsome sad ache. Crockett delivers again.

Website

Far from being locked down, Charley Crockett seems to have been incredibly busy over the past year. August 2020 saw the release of his excellent album, Welcome To Hard Times and then his tribute to the late James Hand came out earlier this year. On a roll then and here comes Music City USA, a glorious collection of songs on which Crockett roots around country, soul and rockabilly with some abandon, ably supported by his band The Blue Drifters. One might assume that the title alludes to Nashville but Crockett roams further afield allowing that many cities in the states have their own claim to music fame, although it’s fair to say that he is rooted in the south and south west on what he calls his “gulf and western” album.

Compared to Welcome To Hard Times there’s more variety on show here and while many of the subjects remain the same, Crockett seems to have a more personal investment in several of them. Songs of outsiders hoping to be discovered relate to his busking years and, on a wider canvas, he takes aim at the dismal situation we all find ourselves in these days. Despite the sometimes grim topics the songs are all gussied up and presented quite wonderfully. The ghosts of Hank Williams, Buck Owens, George Jones and even Doug Sahm and Solomon Burke may haunt the record, but it’s vibrant and colourful, as is the excellent artwork on the cover which is quite evocative in its Kodachrome intensity and retro design.

Honest Fight opens the album in a charming and disarming way as Crockett adopts an everyman pose, toiling to get by and standing up for himself. It’s similar in style to many of the songs on Welcome To Hard Times with its straightforward country feel and several songs such as The World Just Broke My Heart, Are We Lonesome Yet, Smoky and Just So You Know follow suit. Crockett knows his stuff and he ranges across a variety of so-called country genres. There’s a Bakersfield touch to Lies And Regret while Buck Owens comes to mind on the title song and there’s surely more than a hint of George Jones in the apologetic Hanger On while Round The World is a helter skelter banjo driven ride. The title song, a wonderfully upbeat countrypolitan number, finds Crockett slyly railing against the corporate side of Nashville. These are all original songs couched perfectly in their various idioms but he also delivers two covers which drive home his knowledge of and love for these classic songs. Muddy Water is a delightful outlaw song, originally recorded by Stonewall Jackson and given here a Cash like delivery. Skip A Rope however is a horse of a different colour. A mid 60s song by Henson Cargill, it’s in a similar category to Porter Wagoner’s Rubber Room, that is to say it is quite unbalanced and ripe for revival as the deceptively jolly playing belies the description of a dysfunctional family who bring up a racist kid.

While Crockett rides imperiously across these varied country genres, he also swoops into the melting pot of his gulf and western musical gumbo. He fronts a horn section on the pleading I Need Your Love and totally nails the sound one associates with Muscle Shoals, a feat he repeats on I Won’t Cry which could have come from the pen of Dan Penn or Spooner Oldham. Acknowledging that blend of blues, soul and country which flourished in the late 60s, he then delivers the wonderful This Foolish Game which should delight any fans of James Carr. However, the highpoint of the album is when Crockett swivels back to dark country sounds on the gutbucket country thump of 518, a song that sounds like Hank Williams backed by The Bad Seeds. Quite exquisite. All in all Crockett gets you to thinking that Music City USA is not so much a place, more a state of mind.

Website

Like a modern day Luke The Drifter, Charley Crockett ambles into sight with the title song of his latest album, an introduction to the disc, sung with a wonderfully resigned air, as the band play a fine nonchalant saloon bar blues. As he sings “Welcome To Hard Times” it’s unsure as to whether he is referring to life’s up and downs or to an actual place, one of those one horse towns which peppered the west with names like Tombstone, Slaughterville or even Hell. It recalls Lee Hazlewood’s debut album, Trouble Is A Lonesome Town in some respects and, like Hazlewood, Crockett peoples his Hard Times with a rum bunch, losers in love, gamblers and ne’er do wells. In addition, the album lopes along with nods to classic country sounds and singers. There are hints of Bakersfield and Countrypolitan while the likes of Marty Robbins and Charlie Rich are lurking in the grooves.

Recorded in the wake of serious health issues, Crockett describes the album as an attempt to reclaim the conversation about country music. In the various styles portrayed here, influenced by his own wanderings, he certainly makes a strong case for cleaving tight to tradition while allowing for a more personal interpretation. Heads You Win could be a Hank Williams song with harmonies by The Sons Of The Pioneers while Fool Somebody Else’s harpsichord like keyboards recall Hazlewood’s gift for unique arrangements. This sense is amplified on Crockett’s rendition of Red Lane’s Blackjack County Jail, a wonderful murder ballad populated by a chain gang.

Above all else, the album is a swoon to listen to from start to end. Endowed with sweet pedal steel and honky tonk piano, most of the songs are lonesome ballads although the band do break into a trot on a few occasions. Paint It Blue is a grand frontier outlaw ballad which surely is influenced by Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter and the windswept Run Horse Run has echoes of Morricone’s spaghetti western soundtracks with its church like bells. The ramshackle banjo lilt of Lily My Dear is the earthiest number here while there is more than a soupçon of soul on Rainin’ In My Heart. Finally, Crockett closes the album with a slight return to the litany of woes which opened the album albeit this time with a banjo skiddled country sound on The Poplar Tree. It’s back to our narrative drifter on yet another tale of woe but Crockett makes it personal here as he sings, “Let me tell you a story, it happened this way, it was born out of longing and a man that’s gone astray. I’ve been to the valley in the shadow of death. I’ve crossed many rivers wearing a scar on my chest.” A perfect way to end the show.

While he’s certainly prolific, there’s no sense here that Crockett is churning out made to measure albums. Welcome To Hard Times is quite a contrast to his previous release The Valley in that it has more depth and in our view, it’s the better album.

Website