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Is the music of native Texas singer-songwriter Charley Crockett classic country? Hillbilly blues? Old school soul? Down-Home-Rock’n’Roll? A little bit of everything maybe?
What he plays is almost exactly the reason why the genre Americana emerged in the mid-1990s, which is a large genre for all types of traditional American music forms that often does not fit into narrower radio formats. And so it was fitting that Crockett was named Emerging Act of the Year at the Americana Music Awards in Nashville last month.
The AMA uses “Emerging” instead of the Grammy’s “Best New Artist” tag precisely because artists who qualify have sometimes been around for a while. That’s the case with Crockett, whose career has gradually picked up speed over an impressive run of 10 albums since 2015.
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Crockett is from San Benito and moved to Austin from Dallas a few years ago. He has since played in local clubs and toured incessantly, including an appearance on the BMI stage at the 2018 ACL Fest. On Saturday, he and his five-piece band moved into the larger area around the VRBO stage and jammed 18 songs into an hour-long set that examined the breadth of his musical paths.
Crockett has always mixed his own original material with covers that help shed light on his origins. At ACL, these included songs by the late songwriters Justin Townes Earle (“Harlem River Blues”) and James Hand, and Waco troubadour Crockett was honored with the tribute album “10 for Slim” released earlier this year.
Crockett is not an inherently spectacular singer, but his voice has a lot of character and he uses it well against arrangements based on a guitar / bass / drum core with lots of color by pedal steel player Nathan Fleming and keyboards / trumpeters Kullen Fox. His music may be retro, but it sounds fresh in Crockett’s hands. He seems to be a born entertainer, and he dresses the role: On Saturday he discovered a brisk lavender suit with rhinestone accents.
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And Crockett is nothing but creatively humble. Towards the end of the set, he kindly asked the crowd, “If you like what you’re hearing, head over to the merch table. And if you didn’t like it, that’s fine too. “
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