charley crockett the valley

Charley Crockett from the album The Valley available on Son of Davy Records  (by Bryant Liggett)
Fans of real Country music have always known the genre has remained cool despite all the Pop stars derailing its purity. There are plenty of road warrior true-believers schlepping a pedal steel onto a stage night after night, preaching to a return offender choir about how good Country music has always been here and within their reach. Charley Crockett is one of the artists appeasing and proselytizing with that same pulpit, taking all of the great wide-spread musical elements available in Roots music, from a Big Band playing Two-Steppin’ twang to a single microphone catching the recording of a murder ballad. The latest Charley Crockett release The Valley promises, and delivers, all that and more.
The hand-clap driven “Borrowed Time” kicks the The Valley off with a gospel heavy tone, followed by the title track, a reflective tale where beautiful pedal steel plays out under the narrative. “Big Gold Mine” raises some dust featuring an up-tempo dancer with fiddle, pedal steel and some whistling. The story becomes a simple love song where Charley Crockett sings ‘I don’t need no big gold mine, I just wanna make you mine’. “If Not the Fool” is a timeless slow dance, sonically falling back to a recording and release date circa 1958, the dirty saxophone with Charley Crockett’s aching vocals makes for a gem. “9-Pound Hammer” is delivered with campfire simplicity made up of plucked banjo and sparse percussion, the track followed by the gospel flair, and keyboard saturated “River of Sorrow.” An appropriate album closer is “Motel Time Again”, the song a crying in your beer cut about the doldrums of being in a traveling band, where the narrator will once again ‘find your way once more, to that old number on the door’, a reference to whatever motel/hotel room is home for the night. The Valley was recorded prior to a life-saving heart surgery for Charley Crockett that took place early in 2019. The Valley is a no frills, no tricks, recording that travels seamlessly from each note and through every heart-aching lyric.
 
Listen and buy the music of Charley Crockett from AMAZON
 
http://www.charleycrockett.com/
 

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