Americana favourite delivers the final chapter of his adventurous Sagebrush Trilogy that concludes with the mythological and wide-ranging story of the ‘Outlaw’ Billy MacLane.
Readers of Americana UK are likely to be very familiar with the backstory of Texan singer-songwriter Charley Crockett, the country’ outsider’ as he likes to be called, so that he is differentiated from the commercial country music that typically emanates from the recording studios in Nashville. He is, nevertheless, a true country roots artist in the manner of the likes of Marty Robbins, Willie Nelson, or Waylon Jennings, so it is quite appropriate that his latest album (and the two that preceded it, forming the so-called Sagebrush Trilogy) is produced by Jennings’ son, Shooter.
Although Crockett had been around a long time in the music business, spending many years busking or playing around the world since leaving school, it was not until he turned thirty that his first album was released, in 2015, the highly regarded A Stolen Jewel, packed with a diverse collection of glorious roots tracks, from country, blues, Cajun, and jazz. Although its production was far less sophisticated than some of his later albums, it laid the groundwork for much of what followed; Crockett’s ability to switch seamlessly from genre to genre, his insistence on independence from the mainstream (he released all his albums on his own Son of Davy Records) and it established him in the Texas music scene with a Dallas Observer Award for ‘Best Blues Act’ to boot. And since then, Crockett has certainly been playing catch-up with at least an album a year, so that new release Age of the Ram is his 16th album. His big break, however, came with the release of The Man from Waco in 2022, reviewed here in AUK.
The first two albums in the Sagebrush Trilogy, both released within the last year or so, received high praise across the board and were also very positively reviewed in AUK here and here, where the story behind his change of record company to Island Records is explained. The new album (the title of which was presaged in Dollar a Day with Age of the Ram Theme) follows a tried and tested formula; fine lyricism and storytelling about the life and times of outlaw Billy McLane, and lovely cinematic scope (not just from the band but from the associated train, horse and gunshot sounds). The third album introduces the ‘Outlaw’, after the first two characters, the ‘Drifter’ and the ‘Rustler’, both referred back to in the lyrics of the new album. This album completes an ambitious but ultimately successful project, bringing the story of the characters to a satisfactory conclusion.
The album has very little of the blues and the string arrangements of the first in the series, although it retains from the second album the kind of music stylings that link old-time acoustic music with a cinematic scope and a more modern approach, which Crockett has previously described as Gulf and Western music. In essence, the album tells the story of the outlaw Billy McLane, who is chased by a group of bounty hunters but who becomes something of a legend, although ultimately accepting of his anticipated fate. The much-heralded 20-track finale is a bit of a misnomer, as so many of the tracks are short, scene-setting interludes which run under a minute; there are several of these. The album opens with a short piece underpinning the cinematic nature of the album; it starts with an introduction announcing The Life and Times of Billy McLane (a character that first appeared on Crockett’s $10 Cowboy album, though based on an old Marty Robbins character) and is followed by the whirring sounds of a film spool a la 1940s western. The track is just over a minute long, and the linking of the narrative using these short pieces is clearly intended to underpin the cinematic nature of the album, which runs like a soundtrack to a Western movie, with the short pieces providing a link to the various episodes of the film. In truth, it tends to interrupt the flow of the songs, which was not the case on Dollar A Day.
The intro does, however, presage a run of tracks that really get into the narrative, beginning with the rather slow Lonesome Dove, from which the protagonist escapes “everybody’s chasing that glory”. The slow waltz Rancho DeLuxe is one of two tracks of the same name, about a gambling establishment. By now, the excellent and familiar Crockett session men have displayed their skilful accompaniment – the weeping steel guitar of Nathan Fleming, the tinkly honky tonk piano (and other assorted keyboards) of Kullen Fox, the electric guitar of Alexis Sanchez, and some superb acoustic guitar (and sometimes electric) of Crockett himself. Shooter Jennings plays some nice organ on some of the tracks, too.
My Last Drink of Wine has a more folksy feel to begin with, then changes speed and then back to walking pace, a trick that is used on a number of tracks (viz Crazy Woman Ridge) which might not appeal to every listener, and Fastest Gun Alive has an appropriate ramping up of the tempo. The pretty slow ballad Diamond Belle (Country Boy) has the outlaw by now on the run with “trouble on my mind and a lawman close behind“.
Kentucky Too Long is the catchiest song on the album (and was the obvious option for the first single), which continues the story of a man on the run, but from what is not specified. It pinpoints the itinerant nature of the protagonist (which mirrors Crockett’s past) “Been in Kentucky too long / I done come here from Arkansas / Ain’t runnin’ from no Johnny Law”, and it has some great guitar playing, but that is the same throughout. Take a listen to Nathan Fleming’s blistering steel guitar on Me and Shooter.
There’s some fine instrumental interplay across the album (e.g., I Shot Jesse James) and some cool cross-referencing in the songs of the characters or places or actions. Cover My Trail is the lovely last track that is foreshadowed by the earlier 30-second Drifter’s Lament, where Billy repeats “cover my trail” before there is the sound of horses’ hooves; the song ends with the sound of gunshots, bringing the whole cinematic experience to an end. Age of the Ram is a fine album, beautifully played, sung and produced, and Crockett should feel rightly proud of his achievement.
