GRAMMY® Award-nominee Charley Crockett announces his new album Lonesome Drifter, out March 14, his official debut for Island Records. On Friday, Crockett will unveil the album’s title track and accompanying video.
Watch the album trailer below…
Crockett co-produced the album alongside multi-GRAMMY® Award-winning Shooter Jennings. Over the course of just 10 days, they cut the record’s 12 tracks live at the legendary Sunset Sounds Studio in Los Angeles, CA.
During the sessions, Charley and Shooter invariably bottled “the magic of performance on tape.”
“Shooter and I barely talked about it,” says Charley. “I just brought all of my guys out, and the album made itself. It was live without a lot of overdubs. There were no inhibitions. I wasn’t being judged, and I didn’t feel self-conscious. Shooter knew how to cut loose and let this thing unfold.”
His vision crystallizes on the first single and title track, “Lonesome Drifter.” A rolling drumbeat and steady tambourine underscore the slow-burning vocal delivery, “I’m just a lonesome drifter on the only highway.”Guitar wails like a siren in the background until Crockett’s fret-scorching solo shakes the bridge. The visual translates the tune’s energy to the screen, speaking to his incredible journey thus far in the process.
“I started writing the song back when I was still playing in subways in New York,” he recalls. “It’s how I learned to play electric guitar with an amp on my shoulder. While I was waiting for the next train, I wrote songs. A few years later, I was in California working on the ganja farms, and I came up with the ‘Lonesome Drifter’ section. When I arrived on the West Coast, I worked to stay out there as a drifter, so I could get away with playing music for a living. At night, I was doing heavy electric blues and hillbilly shit at local bars for six hours. Shooter got me back into that mindset. The burden of becoming a troubadour is you’re standing in a position that gives you a clear perspective of the struggles of humans. When all is said and done, everyone is just swinging a hammer to survive.”
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