TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Charley Crockett, is a songwriter, singer and guitarist whose music ranges from country to rhythm and blues, cowboy songs, outlaw ballads and the song "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen." Now, I don't know exactly where that song fits in, but his version is so much fun. I'm definitely playing it later in the interview.
If I had to choose one word to sum up his music, it would be Americana because I'd be backed up by the Americana Music Awards. He won emerging artist of the year in 2021, and two years later, he was nominated for artist of the year, album of the year and song of the year. This year, he was nominated for a Grammy. He learned to perform while busking on the streets, including in New Orleans, Dallas, Paris, Copenhagen and on the New York City subways. And those passengers can be a tough crowd to win over. That was during a period when he was pretty much broke and crashed in squats and other people's homes.
Crockett grew up poor in a Texas trailer park. His new album, "Dollar A Day," was released last week. It's the second album in his Sagebrush Trilogy. The first, "Lonesome Drifter," was released earlier this year. He's on tour now. At the end of August, he'll begin a tour with Leon Bridges that's billed as The Crooner & The Cowboy. Let's start with a song from the new album "Dollar A Day." The song is an outlaw ballad called "Santa Fe Ring."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SANTA FE RING")
CHARLEY CROCKETT: (Singing) They sold me out to the Santa Fe Ring. There wasn't any trial, where justice was no such thing. Up on Sierra Hermosa, only the strongest last. But they'll never catch me. I'm too fast. They come riding in, just about the break of dawn, caliche on their jackets for they had journeyed long. I didn't need to ask them. I knew the reason why. They brought so many men just to watch me die.
GROSS: That was "Santa Fe Ring" from Charley Crockett's new album, "Dollar A Day." Charley Crockett, welcome to FRESH AIR. Such a pleasure to have you on the show. And thank you for bringing your guitar with you and singing for us soon. So let's start with "Santa Fe Ring." What do you love about outlaw ballads?
CROCKETT: Anytime I run into people, you know, around the country these days, they say, Charley Crockett, what are you doing here? And I say something along the lines of, I'm running from the law. And they go, really? I say, no, I'm just fooling. I'm running from some people a lot more dangerous than that.
(LAUGHTER)
CROCKETT: And then we take a picture.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: Are you really running from anyone?
CROCKETT: No. I've been accused of that, but I always feel that I am running, but I like to think that I'm running towards something, not away from anything.
GROSS: So you wrote the song, right?
CROCKETT: Yeah, I did.
GROSS: How did you come up with the story? 'Cause good outlaw ballads need a good story.
CROCKETT: Have you ever heard of the Santa Fe Ring? Do you know...
GROSS: No. I have no idea what it is. Is it a thing?
CROCKETT: Yeah, it was a thing. It's historical. The Santa Fe Ring was a loose, shadowy syndicate. Basically, a bunch of landowners fighting over the New Mexico territory in the 19th century. And I remember hearing when I was younger that Bob Dylan was really obsessed with Billy the Kid. And one of the people that got caught up in that whole range war was none other than Billy the Kid. So Billy the Kid had been pulled into the fight. You know, these cowboys, these outlaws were really pulled into these conflicts as basically mercenaries. And maybe, you know, it's partly fact, partly fiction, but I had kind of realized or thought that maybe Dylan's interest in Billy the Kid maybe had to do with the forces that he was dealing with as he rose to prominence as a folk singer in America in the '60s. And I like to take stuff like that and turn them into stories.
GROSS: You play in many different styles. You do cowboy songs, country-western, rhythm and blues. What music were you most exposed to growing up in south Texas? A little bit of everything?
CROCKETT: Yeah. Terry, you know, I wish I could tell you I came out of the womb playing Hank Williams' songs and, you know, could pick up Dylan songs by ear hearing them one time, but I'd just be lying to you. You know, I didn't learn how to play banjo until I was, you know, in my 20s. But - so, you know, who could escape the ubiquitous dominance of corporate radio? But - so I was just, you know, inspired by all kind of - just everything. I guess my first influence really would've been Freddy Fender, and that's...
GROSS: He's from where you grew up, right?
CROCKETT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We were - so I was born in the Rio Grande Valley, where the Rio Grande River comes out at the Gulf of Mexico, and in the small town of San Benito, Texas, which only reason most people would know outside of that region is because of, yeah, Freddy Fender, born Baldemar Huerta.
GROSS: Do you want to play a few bars of a Freddy Fender song that influenced you in your formative years?
CROCKETT: Sure. I'll just play this right here for you.
(Singing) Wasted days and wasted nights I have held you on my mind. Now you don't belong to me. You belong to someone else.
GROSS: That's a great song.
CROCKETT: Yeah, it really is. You know, he sold a lot of records, Terry.
GROSS: Yes (laughter). You were self-taught on guitar, right?
CROCKETT: Can you tell?
GROSS: No, no. It's just that...
CROCKETT: I'm just fooling you.
GROSS: OK.
CROCKETT: I know you can.
GROSS: I just always wonder, like, how people can teach themselves. I'm wondering, like, if you developed unusual habits not having a teacher, and if you had to, like, unlearn things in order to have the technique that you needed to do what you wanted to do.
CROCKETT: Yeah. Well, it wouldn't be a secret to anybody that knew me well, when I was a kid, I really struggled in school. And when I got a guitar, when I was trying to learn the straight-ahead chords or maybe what I would refer to these days as cowboy chords, like a...
(Playing guitar).
This open C chord, you know, or...
(Playing guitar).
Nice F here and just G...
(Playing guitar).
One, four, five. Took me way too long to learn the number system and all that, but I couldn't hold any of those chords. They hurt my hands. And instead of playing through that in the beginning, like probably most people would, I just didn't have any interest in it. And I started out, and I went straight to this.
(Playing guitar).
And the reason is - I call it choking the chicken. You can't see me, but just imagine if I had my hand around a chicken's neck. What I'm doing is I'm - with my thumb and my middle finger, I'm choking the chicken on that fifth fret. And I never knew the chords at the time and didn't know a number system or anything. But I slowly figured out, if you're playing here in this, say, fifth fret position (playing guitar), well, if I tried to go here (playing guitar) for the next chord, I knew that didn't really make sense. But eventually, I found the four chord here (playing guitar). A D minor, you know? (Playing guitar) And then the five (playing guitar). You wouldn't believe how many people in the music business coming up told me, those are not the correct chords. You're playing a major and a minor, and you can't do that. You know?
GROSS: Can you play us a song where you use the chord progression that you just played for us?
CROCKETT: Yeah. Let me think about that for...
(Singing) Thirteen diamonds round my neck. One silver eagle on my chest. Been trying to find a wild ace, but I still ain't seen one yet. Lone Star is a man, one not riding for the brand. Greenback dollar in his hand, Lone Star makes his stand.
(Playing guitar).
Something like that. Yeah. That's the first style that I ever came up with, and really leaned on that forever. You know, I learned all that stuff first, you know, like that or these kind of chords (playing guitar). People would see me doing all that kind of stuff on the street and think I had a lot more command over the instrument than I maybe did at the time.
GROSS: I think it's funny that you started...
CROCKETT: Yeah.
GROSS: ...Teaching yourself the complicated chords instead of the easy ones.
CROCKETT: Yeah. I'm sure there's a lot to know about me by that statement there.
GROSS: Yeah. Look - well, those are darker chords, too. I mean, they're more interesting chords, I think.
CROCKETT: Yeah. I - you know, I like playing in the - yeah, I like playing in the dark keys. I like playing in the minor keys. People always say I sound flat when I sing, so I figured I'd go ahead and, you know, flat my fifths. I drink them, too.
GROSS: We have to take a short break here. So we'll be back with Charley Crockett, more music and conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE HADEN SONG, "WILDWOOD FLOWER (FEAT. ROSANNE CASH")
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Charley Crockett, who also brought his guitar and has been singing and playing for us. His new album is called "Dollar A Day."
You learned to perform on the streets, busking in some very noncowboy territory like the New York City subways. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and would love to hear about when you played in the subways, in the stations and on the trains. What did you learn about how to get the attention of people who just wanted to catch a train and not be bothered?
CROCKETT: Lord have mercy. First place I played outside in New York City was Central Park. And there were all these incredible musicians who had already figured out where all the money was, and I wasn't any kind of anything at the time. And I remember wandering further and further into the park until I found a tunnel that had very little foot traffic, and there was nobody there. And that's where I started playing. And I would continually revisit that spot throughout the years that I'd come, you know, in and out of New York. Played a hundred yards from there with Willie Nelson not too far back, on the SummerStage. But from the very first time that I sat down in that tunnel, immediately - just sitting there, messing around with my little rinky-dink songs - people were throwing change in my case.
And it's not like I was making a mountain of dollars or anything. But I do remember that first two hours that I ever sat down there and just fooling around with one song, probably oftentimes out of pity or novelty, I think I made $4 or $7 or something. You can really stretch that out, you know, when you're squatting, you know, sleeping on couches or staying up at night and sleeping in the park during the day. And I was really happy for that first $7 or whatever it was.
GROSS: But on the trains - like, you played the stations, but you also played on the subway cars. Those cars shake a lot. And I don't even know - like, if you're playing, you're probably standing up. It's hard to stand up without holding on to a pole, which you can't do if you need two hands to play guitar. So can you talk a little bit about what it's like to play guitar on a moving train and what material actually got people to pay some attention, as opposed to seeing you as a nuisance?
CROCKETT: Yeah. Well, some people still do. Keep in mind, I wasn't in New York constantly. You know, we'd - we would move. And it was pretty ideal to move down to New Orleans, you know, when it was cold. It was in New Orleans that I was really starting to get hold of traditional music and started learning stuff like "Worried Man Blues" or "Driving Nails In My Coffin," stuff like that. "My Bucket's Got A Hole In It." Those were early songs that I could get hold of. I brought that with me back from New Orleans, and I remember being there and maybe o the F train somewhere down on the Essex platform or something, and I noticed visually people starting to pay more attention to me. "Drivin' Nails In My Coffin" was one that I'd learned on Royal Street in front of Rouses. I learned the Ernest Tubb version, but it was first cut maybe by Bob Wills, and a lot of people done it. But that one - I mean, I could still go out there right now with a song like "Drivin' Nails" and probably really haul it in.
GROSS: Yeah. So play a little bit of that for us.
CROCKETT: (Strumming guitar, singing) I'm just driving nails in my coffin every time I drink me a bottle of booze. I'm just driving nails in my coffin, Honey, driving these nails over you.
I don't do it too much anymore but used to play it a whole lot.
GROSS: That's a great song. Well, I'm going to switch up the musical mood and play something from your new album that's more rhythm and blues.
CROCKETT: All right.
GROSS: It's called "Destroyed," and it was written by Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham. And do you want to say why you chose this for the album?
CROCKETT: I had found out about Dan Penn years back, but he's a Memphis guy. And, you know what I was really struck by is I thought he was a Black man when I first heard his songs. And, honestly, I couldn't believe he was white. That's probably the first thing that caught my attention about him. And then when I was looking at his catalog, you know, he - maybe it's a Memphis thing. It's definitely a South thing. You know, he just naturally moved between, you know, rhythm and blues and soul and country music. And "Destroyed" was a song that I'd found on, like, a bigger box set of his "Fame Recordings" that I had never heard before. No one ever showed me (ph).
GROSS: Fame at the studio where he worked.
CROCKETT: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Anyways, I found "Destroyed," and I thought, Man, how is this not a hit, you know? I guess when you're as prolific a writer as he is, you know, they can't all be hits. So I thought I would - actually, we just had a little bit of tape left, honestly, at - with Shooter at Sunset Sound on this last recording just earlier back in the winter. And we were all tired, and I really didn't have any more gas in the tank. You know, I was all out of diesel, and we were about to hang it up, but we had this - we had Bob Glaub, this really amazing, you know, legendary bass player who played with Linda Ronstadt and a number of other people for decades, who was playing on those three or four sessions because my buddy Kyle Madrigal had gotten sick, and he couldn't make it. And I just didn't - I couldn't bring myself to leave the studio without doing one more thing with him.
And then I remember "Destroyed," and we got in there, and it was late night, and I was just far beyond exhaustion. Actually, my voice was really blown. But when the band started working it up, I got so excited. It's one of those weird things where you hit a gear that you don't know you have, and, you know, it made the record.
GROSS: It came out good. So let's hear it. This is "Destroyed" from my guest Charley Crockett's new album, "Dollar A Day."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DESTROYED")
CROCKETT: (Singing) I'm weak as a lamb and my head's spinnin' like a top. Oh, what a kiss. It felt like an H-bomb dropped. Destroyed, ooh-wee, baby. Destroyed, you got me, baby. Your good lovin', girl, has really got me destroyed. I said somethin' you've got has me out of my mind over you. And like an old hound dog, I'm barkin', and I'm hollerin', too. Destroyed, ooh-wee, baby. Destroyed, you got me, baby. Your good lovin', girl has really got me destroyed. Love is a funny thing.
GROSS: That was "Destroyed" from my guest Charley Crockett's new album "Dollar A Day." We need to take another break here, so let me reintroduce you. My guest is Charley Crockett, and he's got a new album, which is called "Dollar A Day." We'll be right back with more of Charley Crockett and more of his music after this break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AIN'T THAT RIGHT")
CROCKETT: (Singing) Blew into Austin from Denver yesterday. Got word my manager didn't wanna stay. Ain't that right? Ain't that right? Ain't that right? Ain't that right?
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with songwriter, singer and guitarist Charley Crockett. His music ranges from country to rhythm and blues, cowboy songs and outlaw ballads. He's won an Americana Music Award and has been nominated for three others, and was nominated for a Grammy this year. His new album, "Dollar A Day," is the second part of his "Sagebrush Trilogy" of albums. The first, "Lonesome Drifter," was released earlier this year.
Your first album was self-released. It was called "Stolen Jewel," and it has one of my favorite of your recordings because it's just delightful. And your music is usually pretty dark, which I gravitate to, but this is just delightful. The song is "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen." Not a cowboy song - it's a song from a 1930s Yiddish musical. And Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, who wrote a lot of, like, songs for movies, and Sammy Cahn wrote a lot of lyrics for Sinatra - they took this Yiddish song, wrote an English lyric for it and made it a little more pop-jazzy than it probably initially was. And you turned it into this kind of swing song. Just say a little bit about how - like, what you wanted to do with this song.
CROCKETT: It's another one that I picked up in that river of bourbon whiskey flowing through the French Quarter.
GROSS: In New Orleans? That's not the...
CROCKETT: It's the most...
GROSS: It's not the place I'd expect you to find a song that was originally a Yiddish song. It was a hit for The Andrews Sisters.
CROCKETT: I heard that song getting played by different bands. I'd hear them out on the street on Royal. And then one night, I was in the Spotted Cat on Frenchmen and the little - the band on the little - on the bandstand there was playing it in a swing style that I just really liked. And I love "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen." I love the swing of it. I was getting ahold of a lot of that stuff. I learned a lot of Jelly Roll Morton songs, a lot of Louis Armstrong stuff. You know, St. James Infirmary was one we used to play the mess out of.
And I'm - like I said, I'm not a - I don't ever - I never thought I was a great musician or anything. But that - those traditional styles of folk music, which is - all these things is - that's all New Orleans for me, mostly, is where I picked it all up. And as soon as we started playing "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen," you know, the whole thing we were doing, like, took a whole - we leveled up tremendously off the one song. And giving you another example of something that, when we - next time we showed up in New York City and some other towns, when we started playing that "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" on the subways, we started turning those subway cars over, emptying out their pockets. And they were glad to do it.
GROSS: All right. Let's hear why. This is "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" from Charley Crockett's first album, the album called "Stolen Jewel."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEI MIR BIST DU SCHOEN")
CROCKETT: One, two, a-one, two, three, four.
(Singing) Bei mir bist du schoen. Please let me explain. Bei mir bist du schoen, means that you're grand. Bei mir bist du schoen. Again, I'll explain. It means that you're the fairest in the land. I could say bella, bella, even wunderbar. Each language I'm using only lets you know how grand you are. I've tried to explain, bei mir bist du schoen. Kiss me, honey. Say you understand. Doo-wop, doo-wop, doo-wop, doo-wop. Bei mir bist du schoen. Please let me explain. Bei mir...
GROSS: That was "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" from Charley Crockett's first album, which is called "Stolen Jewel." His new album is called "Dollar A Day."
I'm going to ask you to do another song. And the song is from your "Lonesome Drifter" album, the first in your "Sagebrush Trilogy," and it's "This Crazy Life." Would you sing that for us?
CROCKETT: I'd be delighted.
(Singing) The more I think about it, the less I'm really sure that I know just what I'm doing any of this for. But I hold myself together for all the things I love. I will try to make sense of this crazy life. This crazy life will lead you down a long and winding road. It will break your heart, tear you all apart, but it's the only way to go. And, darling, you know I care for you, though I'm not too good with love. I will try to make sense of this crazy life.
GROSS: Thank you. That's Charley Crockett singing for us. That sounded really good.
Speaking of crazy life, you had heart surgery about six years ago. What was wrong, and how did you know you were in trouble?
CROCKETT: Oh. Yeah, I was born down there in Cameron County, southernmost county in Texas. And, you know, I don't think they knew a whole lot. You'd be surprised how little they even knew about a lot of things with heart conditions, I guess, in the '80s. But I knew I had - I was born with Wolff-Parkinsons-White disease. Basically, it's a - it's, like, a electrical problem in your heart. And so I knew I had that. It caused arrhythmia, caused my heart to go out of rhythm and speed up, speed up and speed up and speed up and speed up until you shocked it back into regular rhythm. And those doctors down there told my mama that, you know, it wasn't life-threatening. Even though it had almost killed me a couple of times the first month I was alive, they were saying that as I grew older that it would be an annoyance but never life-threatening. But as I got older, actually, this kind of strange thing is, like, in my 20s, my heart wasn't going out of rhythm or seemingly wasn't going out of rhythm as much as when I was a kid. And then in my 30s, it - my - when I turned 30, like, it started coming back more kind of than ever. And I didn't even really realize what it was. But I would be sitting there on, like, the back of the tour bus, you know, and I would just be - I was getting dizzy a lot, you know, or I'd be blacking out, getting really lightheaded all the time, you know? And I didn't know even then that it was anything more serious.
And I remember one night, I was playing at the Shady Grove there. KGSR was the radio station. Now it's ACL Radio. And my heart went out of rhythm, like, in the middle of the show. Of course, I didn't stop. I played all the way through the encore. But by the time I ran off the stage, I was - you know, Alexis Sanchez, who plays guitar in my band, said I was just truly, like, the color blue. And it never went - I could never get it back into rhythm for, like, 24 hours.
When I went to try to go see this doctor, I hadn't had health insurance as an adult. Still didn't at the time. I went to the doctor there, and I ended up going and getting an echo. Dr. Chop (ph), that was his name. And it was, like, 7:30 in the morning or whatever, and I'm laying there on the table sideways, and they're putting that hot gel on your chest and moving the scope around you. And I could see that the lady - I could see the concern on her face, you know. And they're not supposed to tell you anything, but I - it was weird. I knew something was wrong. Then I kind of forgot about it. By the time I got home that morning, about an hour and a half, two hours later, I get a call from Dr. Chop. And he said, hey, buddy. You know, you've got aortic valve disease, you know, and that heart's going to shut down on you anytime, you know. Hey, you're dying.
GROSS: So you needed surgery, and you got a valve transplant. Is that what you got?
CROCKETT: Yeah. They wanted to put a mechanical valve in there, and that's all they offered me, actually, at first.
GROSS: As opposed to a pig valve.
CROCKETT: They didn't tell me anything.
GROSS: But you ended up with a pig valve, right?
CROCKETT: No, not a pig valve.
GROSS: Not a pig.
CROCKETT: I ended up with a cow valve.
GROSS: A cow. Oh, I didn't know they do cows. OK.
CROCKETT: Does that not make me a cowboy?
GROSS: (Laughter) That's funny and true, right?
CROCKETT: It's true.
GROSS: Yeah.
CROCKETT: I'm literally part cow.
GROSS: A different kind of cowboy. Charley Crockett, thank you so much for singing and playing for us and for talking with us about your life. I wish you good luck on the tour with Leon Bridges, and I wish you good health.
CROCKETT: Hey, I appreciate that, Miss Terry. I'm going to put that in my pocket.
GROSS: Charley Crockett has a new album called "Dollar A Day." His tour with Leon Bridges begins August 26.
The popular movie "Alien" now has a prequel in the form of a new TV series called "Alien: Earth." It just premiered on FX and is streaming on Hulu. Our TV critic David Bianculli will tell us what he thinks of it after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
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