Why You Should Keep Following Charley Crockett

On stage, he is master of his domain. Each song serves as an experimentation ground where he can gauge audience reaction to new material he’s developed.

Born and raised in San Benito in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, he became intrigued with travel early. While attending high school he spent summers living with an uncle in New Orleans where he discovered big band-era crooners and swamp pop.

Born in San Benito

Charley Crockett is on an exciting and hard-won journey. Although he has become a rising star of Americana/country music, there’s still so much more he has to share with the world and that is why you should continue following him.

His parents deeply influenced his values in many ways, from teaching him the importance of authenticity to instilling in him a strong work ethic – these lessons manifested themselves in his sincere songwriting and desire to connect with his fans on an intimate level.

He’s an admirer of hip-hop music, which he credits as inspiring his style of Americana. This connection is fitting as both genres emerge from grassroots communities with similar themes about hardship and social injustice; both genres also contain repetitive musical motifs which allow artists to participate and improvise freely – this fact alone accounts for his success in finding an audience despite leading a busy lifestyle.

Raised in Dallas

Charley Crockett continues to strike an elegant balance of country, blues and southern soul that has cemented him as one of America’s premier independent acts. His songs combine the best aspects of Tex-Mex, old Storyville jazz country styles with his trademark sense of humor – making for captivating performances across America.

He’s come a long way since busking New York City subways and performing with Trainrobbers at small Texas clubs, his 2015 album A Stolen Jewel earning him a Dallas Observer Music Award for Best Blues Act; Lonesome as a Shadow has already reached Billboard’s Heatseekers Album chart top 20!

Watching him perform live, it is clear that his performance goal goes far beyond simply playing his beloved music – it is an attempt at telling a tale and engaging his audience as they dance along to his infectious rhythms of $10 Cowboy.

Traveled the country

Charley Crockett tells his origin story like any good hobo would: hopping trains across America while playing songs to earn some extra money wherever he could.

Life was instrumental in shaping his music, which later made him one of Dallas’s most exciting talents – an innovative blend of rootsy yet contemporary country & western with Louisiana blues & gospel influences.

His debut album, A Stolen Jewel, was released in 2015 and immediately garnered industry interest. A young talent scout saw him on an R train and offered him management deals and club residencies; she provided Gibson guitars, apartment sublets, clothes as well as services to navigate drink minimums, ticket pre-sales requirements and onerous stage rules that prevented performers without resources from performing on stage; then Leon Bridges gave his approval allowing him to continue performing around Texas and across the country for years thereafter.

Made a name for himself

Crockett excelled as a charming entertainer at KNON’s intimate studio, charming audiences with his intricate storytelling of country, folk and blues forms he was familiar with yet brought new meaning out of. On “Welcome to Hard Times”, for instance, he captured inner alienation amid contemporary distraction with an upward scoop in melody that suggested careful guarded sensitivity.

His band the Blue Drifters — a six-piece outfit with an old school cowboy aesthetic and some of the coolest cowboy hats since Ernest Tubb’s Texas Troubadours — provided backing, adding rhythmic looseness with their own honky-tonk piano flourishes for rhythmic looseness – garnering them critical acclaim from Leon Bridges who is currently supporting them on tour.

Videos of Train Robbers performances continue to go viral online, such as one on a moving subway train where Crockett in sweater and beanie serenades an audience that subduedly applauded at his end. Against all odds, this boy from San Benito managed to make it to this grand stage.