Charley Crockett has packed a lot in to what is still a young music career.
The Texan has been a busker, playing for change in cities both in the states and abroad. He’s hoboed around the country, signed a major record deal that fell apart before the ink dried and played dingy clubs to prominent venues like Red Rocks and The Grand Ole Opry. He’s dropped eight records in the last five years, the latest, “Welcome To Hard Times,” already being mentioned by critics as one of the year’s best.
It’s a career that he’s making up as he goes, an endless road trip of writing, recording and performing. Durango was even a home at one point a decade back, and his video for the song “Jamestown Ferry” was filmed inside the Strater Hotel and elsewhere around the region.
“We were hitchhiking out of New York City to Chicago, made some money in Kansas City, caught a Greyhound to Grand Junction and then hitchhiked to Durango,” Crockett said. “I ended up playing on Main Avenue, playing at the Summit, at the old Abbey at open mic night, hanging out at the college. There was a roots music scene and bluegrass scene and the arts culture was unique to me, and I loved the mountains. There was nothing like it.”
Crockett was 17 when his mother bought him a pawn shop guitar. His teenage soundtrack was rap, a soundtrack that expanded when he hit the road.
“My momma had a good ear for music and listened to a lot of old-school stuff, but really the way I first got into music was hip-hop, singing over hip-hop tracks. That gave me my sense of performance and improvisation,” he said. “Then on the street, I started absorbing all the music that was around me –blues players in the bars in New Orleans to other travelers doing folk music, a lot of jazz and rhythm and blues, soul on the streets of New York City. But when I started hearing folk music and spirituals, that was the easiest and most natural for me to sing.”
Crockett’s done his music homework; he’ll cite The Carter Family, Lightning Hopkins or George Jones as influences, musicians whose catalog he learned song by song from busking. Record stores may file him under country and honky-tonk, but he’s also a soul singer, with his latest being a mash-up of Jimmy Rogers and Sam Cooke, where smooth and silky, old school R&B two-steps with classic twang. It’s 21st century music influenced by the classics.
“Folks can find me doing hardcore honky-tonk, and they can find me doing stuff that might fit more into soul and R&B, in a way that young people can understand,” he said. “You can take a ride through my records in a way that will show you old-time music, with a bluegrass influence and the classic country, but I’m a modern man, so I speak to my times as well.”
Crockett has made a name for himself in the music business, someone who can take an industry punch, enough in fact that he’s been dubbed the “Muhammad Ali” of country music, a title worn with pride. He’s a tough-as-nails musician whose life has been a country song, from brushes with the law to recent health issues. That’s behind him, and he remains appreciative of every step that’s gotten him to where he is now.
“It’s rewarding for me to sing these songs. And for every song I learn how to sing, it gives me a chance to write one; that’s my contribution to America,” he said. “I’m honored and have gratitude for the people that came before me to allow me to play this music – people from difficult backgrounds, racial backgrounds, economic backgrounds, different sections of America bringing different culture with them. I’m honored to carry that music and share it with people. It gives me a sense of belonging that I was not able to find any other way.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
