ALBUM REVIEW: Charley Crockett Returns to His Roots, Embraces Vintage Nashville Sound on ‘Lonesome Drifter’
John Amen
Posted On March 14, 2025
One of the more prolific artists working today, Charley Crockett releases his 15th album, Lonesome Drifter today. Drawing from the artistry of earlier work, particularly last year’s $10 Cowboy, Crockett continues to advance his persona – rambling man, raconteur, philosopher – offering hooky songs about hardscrabble romance and life on the road.
On the title track, Crockett nails a poker-faced drawl as he sings about work-related hardships, how everywhere he goes, people seem to be toiling for little (“Everybody’s waiting on that rising sun / to drop down turn red and be done”). “Game I Can’t Win”, meanwhile, exemplifies vintage Nashville, Crockett’s voice surrounded by twangy electric guitars, churchy synths, and sleek pedal-steel runs.
“Easy Money” showcases Crockett’s ability to personalize narrative tropes. “I woke up in New York City without a name / wasn’t long before I learned the hustler’s game”, he declares. He then describes meeting a dancer named Nell, who took “easy money off the good time men”. The track lands as a moving tale a la Charles Bukowski or Tom Waits, a slice of life on the fringes.
If “Easy Money” points to the inherent strangeness of existence, “This Crazy Life” more directly asserts it: “This crazy life / will lead you down a long and winding road”, Crockett proclaims. As the lounge-y violins crescendo, one can imagine the couple in the noir-romance kissing in a doorway, the viewer left to figure out if their relationship is beginning or ending.
With “Life of a Country Singer”, Crockett addresses being on tour, how days unfurl in a limbo – between cities, between venues, “between right and wrong”. “Night Rider” captures Crockett at his most drawly. Again fleshing out the life of a nomadic singer, he reiterates how there is immense freedom and burdensome pain in not truly belonging, not really having a home. Closer “Amarillo by Morning” features swirly guitar lines and horn blasts, Crockett tipping his hat to Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, as he voices eagerness to reach his destination.
The Shooter Jennings-produced Drifter doesn’t quite exude the magic of the Billy Horton-helmed $10 Cowboy, which conjured Las Vegas as much as the Grand Ole Opry, and a David Lynch film as much as Crazy Heart. It does, however, spotlight Crockett’s consistency, as he spins out another set of deftly crafted songs. Crockett may sing about being an outsider, but this time around he does so via templates that are as tried and true as grandma’s pound cake.
Charley Crockett’s Lonesome Drifter is out March 14 via Island Records.
