Charley Crockett (photo by Ian Laidlaw)
The new year is off to a fine start already for fans of real country music.
At midnight on the first day of 2024, Charley Crockett and Willie Nelson released a duet titled “That’s What Makes the World Go Around,” a loping country weeper about a “young woman through the window” struggling to balance big city dreams with the small town simplicity she sees around her and the choices that follow.
“Willie called me up, said he was out at Pedernales cuttin’, and asked if I had any songs ready he could jump on,” fellow Texan Crockett explains in a press release announcing the single. “I told him I had plenty. Hung up the phone, drove out to Billy Horton’s place, and wrote a couple on the spot. We fired ’em off to Spicewood where he sang and took a ride on one that very next day. When I heard him come in singing on his first line, I shed a tear. Then his leads on Trigger hit, and I was crying!”
Crockett and Nelson previously crossed paths last April at the “Long Story Short” concerts celebrating Nelson’s 90th birthday at the Hollywood Bowl. Crockett’s rendition of Nelson’s “Yesterday’s Wine” is included on the album collecting those performances, which was released in December (ND review). Crockett released his own live album, Live from the Ryman, last September.
Nelson released two studio albums in 2023: I Don’t Know a Thing About Love, his tribute to songwriter Harlan Howard, in March (ND review), and Bluegrass in September (ND review). Bluegrass is nominated for a Grammy in the Best Bluegrass Album category. Last February, he won a Grammy in the Country Album category for his 2022 album A Beautiful Time (ND review). He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November.
