Texas singer-songwriter Charley Crockett has shared his new song, “$10 Cowboy.” It’s the title track and lead single from his upcoming album due out April 26. This follows his 2023 breakout record The Man from Waco and a live album recorded at the Ryman Auditorium.
“This material is written at truck stops, it’s written at casinos, it’s written in the alleys behind the venues, it’s written in my truck parked up on South Congress in Austin," Crockett says. "A ramblin’ man like me, a genuine transient, is in a pretty damn good position to have something to say about America.”
Speaking about the album title, Crockett commented, “A $10 Cowboy is a country singer who made himself on a street corner in America. But the cowboy way, the cowboy mindset, that applies to anyone who doesn’t feel free, who feels fenced in and bound to something.”
The new songs were recorded live to tape in Austin, Texas. Crockett explained, “The reason I cut it on tape is, when you get the right folks in the room, great players rise to the occasion. When that red light is on and the tape is rolling, you get the magic of a performance.”
“Being out on the road gives you a first-hand experience of how different kinds of Americans see themselves as going through some kind of great struggle,” Crockett said in an accompanying statement. “The roughneck working the oil and gas fields in West Texas. The single mother raising kids by herself. The young man working a street corner because he thinks it’s his only option. I would be dishonest if I said I couldn’t see the thread. Each of ‘em feel invisible. I am struck by the battles they are fighting internally, and the ways they have been entrapped by what America says they are.”
