The Man From Waco - Charley Crockett Track-By-Track
Track By Track Album Review
OF COURSE, I bought tickets (and VIP Upgrade) to Charley on Tour when he hits Boston in November.
On his second release of 2022, Jukebox Charley taps into what he knows best, writing American songs inspired by the greats! Have you read my Jukebox Charley review? Why not?
I’m vibing on a Sunday night, having delayed this review to post my tribute to Sensei George Mattson and, of course, my Dad! Thanks for listening, Dad! And Kelsey!
I have a rare day off today after a stretch of shows with three days in the rearview and 7 days ahead! I feel like I am on tour…in my very own city! leaguepodcast.com/events if you want to see me any time this week.
On with the show!
1.) THE MAN FROM WACO THEME
Charley wants us to feel like we are stepping into a saloon with this slow piano start of the record before the rest of the band kicks in for the aural Spaghetti Western that is “The Man From Waco.”
2.) COWBOY CANDY
It’s almost Halloween, but we don’t think we are talkin’ snickers and Sprees here. In the longstanding tradition of uppers and downers mixed by all the greats to get through the day, Charley sneaks in a bit of enthusiastic yodeling worthy of Roger Miller’s Chug-A-Lug.
3.) TIME OF THE COTTONWOOD TREES
This song will break your heart and think of spring when you used to cruise around in her blue pickup truck. Hey, buddy. She’s gone.
4.) JUST LIKE HONEY
Here’s a classic country song that will kick the sawdust on your floor into the air as you notice the flowers on your partner’s cowboy boots for the first time. This one was co-written by band member and The Saddle’s Kullen Fuchs.
5.) I’M JUST A CLOWN
The first single from this record is “I’m Just A Clown” released on July 26th. What is it with soul singers and clowns? Clown fear aside, and I do love this track that is more Motown than Sun Studios. Sure enough, I found a Clown Rock playlist. It ain’t just Charley and Smokey.
Aesthetically. I do love this low-production video look! I’m sure he spend money to make it look like he didn’t! Those video shoots are expensive!
6.) BLACK SEDAN
the summer season
is turning cool
though the days are still hot
The perfect description of Summer in September - a time-bending anomaly I recently wrote about.
Another co-written by Kullen! A man heads West from Dodge City to hit Denver to escape the life he’s leaving behind in Witchita. Killer pedal steel all over this record, and this one stands out, painting the picture of the blue mountains teased in the trailer.
7.) THE MAN FROM WACO - TITLE TRACK
The title track is easily a short film as part of a Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez mashup. Real cowboy country shit. Guns. Tears. Shallow Water.
Classic songwriting and cadence here painting beautiful pictures of “The Banks of The Brazos”, nature, and regret. A quick search popped up that “The Banks of the Brazos” is the name of another song by the late, great James Hand. Charley paid tribute to the teary-eyed gutwrenching songs of his friend James Hand in “10 for Slim: Charley Crockett sings James Hand”.
“The Banks of the Brazos” also invokes my favorite show streaming, “The Only Murders in the Building.” Steve Martin’s character Charles-Haden Savage played a detective in the fictional show “Brazzos” in the 90s. Current #OnlyMurders continuity has Charles revisiting the show in a reboot of the series (as one does).
"This sends the investigation into a whole new direction"
8.) TRINITY RIVER
Charley shows a more soulful/Motown/gospel side on this track. His motto of just playing “American Music” no matter what the origin sometimes takes him in this direction. And I dig it! But I honestly prefer the more country-sounding songs, overall.
9.) TOM TURKEY
This is my favorite track on the album that seems to have the energy of being created ‘in the moment.’ This is the same energy found on The Clash’s infamous "OK OK, don't push us when we're hot!" on Armagideon Time.
Jam on, Charley! He’s calling the band on bridges, and count-offs live on tape. Stoner vibe country jam session check. On infinite repeat with a great laid-back title Tom Turkey (with not-so-chill lyrics about putting ‘a bullet in your head’) tells the story of a man being ‘hunted down by the man who was your friend’). I don’t know if the lyrics or the story or the song were planned out, but it seems improvised and loose and fun. Favorite track.
10.) ODESSA
We head into the final act of The Man from Waco with a couple of nice ballads, this one targeting Odessa, TX.
Odessa is said to have been named after Odesa, Ukraine, because of the local shortgrass prairie's resemblance to Ukraine's steppe landscape - wiki
11.) ALL THE WAY FROM ATLANTA
it sure is awful hot here in Phoenix
..the land of
the painted…
desert sky
Charley’s making us all experts on Southern cartography with all of these pin drops, but it is a tool that works for authentic country music to paint a picture of travelling the freeways and highways of the good old USA.
12.) HORSE THIEF MESA
A warning tale of Garrapata Ridge as our hero is “lookin’ for a grand finale.” A slow and deliberate song about desperation.
13.) JULY JACKSON
Wait, did July Jackson kill her husband and that chick or what? Where are the cops in this town? How about the newspaper reporters? Just noticing the strings adding atmosphere to this moody track that could be an episode of Dateline.
14.) THE MAN FROM WACO (FINALE)
I always think of 8-track tapes when there is a ‘reprise’ or finale. Sometimes they didn’t want a blank tape on one of the four programs, so you would get a little stinger like this.
15.) NAME ON A BILLBOARD
Here’s Charley mocking his recent success by also expressing his independence. This is his “Have a Cigar” moment. Charley and Thirty Tigers are independent. This song shows he’s not a Hollywood type. But he’s proud to see “his name up in lights,” probably the same way Hank Williams felt as he ascended to fame.
Thanks for letting me share my opinions on some of my favorite new music. I am listening to James Hand a lot now. Great songwriter, RIP!
That squeezes in a last substack post in September for me. I am headed to New York Comic Con and will have more content for you, my lovely subscribers.
Try to help people in Florida if you can.
UPDATE 10/24/22:
Read Charley’s origin of The Man from Waco…
charleycrockett
The Man From Waco came out of an idea driving home to Austin from Dallas late one night last year. We were crossing over the Brazos River like we’d done countless times before. James Hand was born in Waco and I’d started to calling him “The Man From Waco” every time we hit the Brazos. Billy Joe Shaver has been known by that title but I was honestly unaware. Anyway, that turned into a fictional ballad about a man who accidentally kills his estranged wife in a fit of rage when he walks in on the two lovers. Kullen Fox and I wrote the song out mostly on the bus a short time later and then Taylor Grace and Bruce Robison helped us finish it when we were laying the album down in Lockhart. Listening to the roughs I decided to make each song a chapter in The Man From Waco’s story like a Louis L’amour novel. Bruce had encouraged me to listen to the sessions and write the songs that would complete the story. That’s where numbers like “Time Of The Cottonwood Trees”, “Black Sedan”, and “Horsethief Mesa” came from. I was lucky enough to finish a Bob Dylan song from the score to “Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid” and we used it to symbolize our character being “on the lam” if you will. We cut two different instrumentals of the title track and used them as thematic book ends. My friend Carlyle Eubank had asked me to write a song for a film he was making and so I went up to Montana to see what he was working on and came back with “Cowboy Candy”. So we opened up the story with this guy barely holding his life together on the rodeo circuit. I won’t tell you the rest but the tale comes to a conclusion by “July Jackson”, a song Taylor and I wrote in our kitchen. We didn’t include “Name On A Billboard” on the vinyl because it wouldn’t fit. I was heavily influenced by Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger, the greatest Country & Western concept album of all time. But it really all started with the memory of a mystical cowboy named James Hand one night on “The Banks Of The Brazos”. -CC
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