Plenty of artists have ridden country's turn back toward older sounds. Few have been as prolific about it, or as set on doing it their own way, as Charley Crockett. He put out 14 albums independently before Island Records came calling, got his first Grammy nomination for 2024's $10 Cowboy, and has sold out Red Rocks, the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles and two nights at the Ryman. Austin Monthly once called the sound a backyard moonshine of Latin American, Western and Southern styles, and that's about right.
The road there was long. Born in San Benito, Texas, he spent his earliest years in a single-wide trailer in nearby Los Fresnos, moved to Irving by age 9, and spent summers in New Orleans with an uncle, wandering the French Quarter and watching the street performers. He left Dallas in 2007 and spent years moving with the seasons between New York and New Orleans. His debut, A Stolen Jewel, came out in 2015, self-recorded while he did odd jobs in Mendocino County. Open-heart surgery at 34 is part of the story too, along with a family line back to Davy Crockett.
2026 got complicated. Age of the Ram, the last of his three Island albums, arrived April 3, and weeks later he surprise-dropped Clovis, cut at the Norman Petty Studio in Clovis, New Mexico, with Shooter Jennings producing and his band the Blue Drifters behind him. It vanished from streaming on May 7, after he and Island split, and came back July 3 through Atlantic Outpost.