In Conversation With… Charley Crockett

For episode 85 of the podcast (our Long Road special), we interview Charley Crockett about his forthcoming album ‘The Valley,’ playing from Louisiana to the New York subway and touring the UK.

How has the experience grown; does it feel very different every time you come back to the UK now? 

I don’t know if it feels different. I guess I just feel like we’re getting the hang of it. I’ve learned that the English can stand a lot more heckling.

The new album is out on September 20, does it feel like a long time coming? Does this project feel very different to what you’ve done previously?

I guess this one is more autobiographical. I’ve gone through some life-changing stuff with my health and all that, so it’s very personal to me. They all are, but this one’s got the deepest roots in it that I’ve been able to set.

You released your new single very recently, ‘9lb Hammer,’ why did you decide to go out with that one and how’s the response been?

I think that’s one of America’s most important traditional folk songs, so for me I just played it on my banjo. I learned it off a guy in the street in New Orleans years ago and it’s just that particular version… I was really just looking at this guy John Henry and what he represents to America.

That song has got so much history behind it in America. It must be cool to come over here and share it with an audience who is probably less familiar with that. 

They’re very appreciative of American traditional music and without traditional folk music from all the different regional and ethnic backgrounds, without that stuff you can’t have country music, you can’t have modern popular music because that’s what it’s built off.

Your version is building another layer, and so will the versions after you.

Yeah, that particular one, the story of John Henry and the 9lb Hammer that particular song is America’s song.

‘The Valley’ is the title track of the record. Can you talk about the story behind that song, I know it was inspired by your hard upbringing and things like that?

Well I always wanted to write a song, like Loretta Lynn has ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter, I was trying to tell my life story in a few verses. I’m always trying to do that. With this record, it’s kind of like ‘Charley Crockett Sings The Valley and Other Autobiographical Tunes,’ but really I guess I’m the type of musician who mostly does write from my own experience, whereas a lot of people are really good at drawing on other people’s experience. I really like that and I can do that a little bit, but it’s mostly autobiographical for me.

I know your story and musical journey has been very different to most peoples. You’ve played on the subways in New York, the streets of New Orleans… Do you think that has shaped the way you play music now and made you the musician you are now? 

Yes ma’am, that’s my whole bag, that’s my whole thing. I learned how to stand behind my guitar, I learned how to stand up for myself. I learned how to deal with hecklers, you’ve got to overcome that. I used to play in front of Du Monde, that’s a cafe down in New Orleans in the French Quarter and we used to play for a couple of hours there all afternoon. It was a really competitive place to play and it’s really hard. They’re all sitting there, and there’s a little fence in between and they’re eating their beignets and drinking their coffee and whatnot. You’re just out there in the street playing to them, you have to really get their attention. That’s what I was saying about the English folks listening over here this that I’ve noticed, performing for these audiences brings me back to my street days when I relied on that kind of banter. I think they appreciate that here and that’s really cool. I can poke my fun at them and I can cast my line deeper out.

There is that response, interactive element in your music that comes through even in the studio version…

I developed all my music standing on street corners in public and the thing about that that is so different maybe to the more common way to get into music is the people’s attention that you’re trying to get, they’re not there to see you, in fact you’re kind of a nuisance, you’re an unwanted guest so you’ve got to convert them from there. There’s also something really beautiful about that too, because the other side of that is once you do that long enough, you get comfortable. Those people come and go every few minutes, but I’m there, they come and go, it’s my space.

It must be easier, writing an autobiographical raw and real album. You’ve already seen the darkest of humanity…

I’ve seen a lot of the dark parts of its soul yeah, and the light too. You’re really perceptive because that is part of it, people ask me all the time ‘is it a grind out here, is it hard?’ I say for me personally, I’ve got to have gratitude and I’m really counting my lucky stars because it was a lot harder. I used to hitchhike and ride trains and just hobo around, I could do that because I was a lot younger.

And now you can come to Leicestershire to Stanford Hall, in this fabulous red suit and heckle back at the audience. 

(laughs) When they’re engaging with me, it’s more natural for me to go into my music.

I know with your music, you shy away from the ‘Americana’ label, so where do you position your music? 

I wouldn’t say that I dislike the Americana label, I was doing all this music when I was out there all these years before I even heard that term. One day when I finally got off the streets and into these clubs, they started associating that with me. I don’t have a problem with it – it’s just if you call somebody country, what does that mean? I really try to think about it more as regional. I like to think of my Texas and Louisiana upbringing that’s what’s really made me. I’ve been travelling around the world non-stop, I’ve been able to learn this music but really it’s the culture of Texas and Louisiana. We have this deeply rich cultural heritage that’s everything from Teijano and Mexican-influenced music, to Cajun and Creole and all of the other European influences, all these sounds come into these cities. In New Orleans you’d hear jazz bands, honky tonk bands, blues bands, steel bands, everything…

What’s next for the rest of the year, other than the album release? 

I’ve put out quite a few records rapidly, I think The Valley is more organically my best work and I think will be my widest known work to this date. The thing about doing it the way that I have, building it up in such a grassroots way is that with each record I’ve put out, my audience is stronger in a way. I don’t have to wonder if I’m getting big publicity because the roots audience and the amount of touring that I’m doing and the way I can release records with the people that have been helping me with that has got to the point where a record like ‘The Valley’ I can put out and the people will spread the word. However the cards fall, I think I’m going to be alright. I’m proud of the record. It would have been easy for me to make a more commercial sounding record or go for something like that because that’s just what people expect and the way the music game is played, so I really wanted to make a statement about where I’m at with this record.

Complete the sentence…

Music is… my life.

Charley Crockett is… the son of Davy.

 

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