Charley Crockett Announces New Album, ‘$10 Cowboy,’ Informed by the View From the Road

You see a lot of things and meet a lot of people as you’re traversing the country as a touring artist, and Charley Crockett has channeled his recent observations into songs for a new album, $10 Cowboy.

Crockett wrote the songs for $10 Cowboy, which comes out April 26 on his own Son of Davy label and Thirty Tigers, over a two-month period of touring across America.

“This material is written at truck stops, it’s written at casinos, it’s written in the alleys behind the venues, it’s written in my truck parked up on South Congress in Austin,” Crockett explains in a press release announcing the album. “A ramblin’ man like me, a genuine transient, is in a pretty damn good position to have something to say about America.”

What he observed, he says, is “how different kinds of Americans see themselves as going through some kind of great struggle. The roughneck working the oil and gas fields in West Texas. The single mother raising kids by herself. The young man working a street corner because he thinks it’s his only option. I would be dishonest if I said I couldn’t see the thread. Each of ‘em feel invisible. I am struck by the battles they are fighting internally, and the ways they have been entrapped by what America says they are.”

The first taste of $10 Cowboy is the album’s title track, which spins some of his personal experience into something much larger.

“A $10 Cowboy is a country singer who made himself on a street corner in America,” Crockett says. “But the cowboy way, the cowboy mindset, that applies to anyone who doesn’t feel free, who feels fenced in and bound to something.”

Crockett will perform the title track tonight on Jimmy Kimmel Live! with his band, The Blue Drifters.
The album was recorded live to tape at Arlyn Studios in Austin, produced by Crockett and longtime collaborator Billy Horton, who were chasing the sound of Crockett’s energetic live performances. “The reason I cut it on tape is, when you get the right folks in the room, great players rise to the occasion,” Crockett says. “When that red light is on and the tape is rolling, you get the magic of a performance.”

Never one to slow down, Crockett released the single “That’s What Makes the World Go Around,” a duet with Willie Nelson on Jan. 1 (ND story). Last year he released a live album, Live From the Ryman, and was nominated for Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year at the Americana Honors & Awards. The latter two nominations honored his 2022 studio album, The Man From Waco (ND review), with “I’m Just a Clown” netting the Song of the Year nomination.

Crockett’s view from the road isn’t slowing down, either. He heads to Australia for an extensive tour this week, and has announced a full slate of shows in North America starting this spring and extending deep into summer, including stops at the Stagecoach Festival, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and FloydFest. Find his entire tour schedule here.