Charley Crockett has become known for the wonderfully creative and beautifully shot videos that accompany his classy songs. Filmed and edited by Bobby Cochran, ‘I Need Your Love’ is no exception. As ever, the visual is truly cinematic, a piece of artwork in itself. There are so many symbols in the video for ‘I Need Your Love’: the dice, the falling rose, the long ribbon of highway in the vast American landscape, the setting sun as Crockett dances with Taylor Grace in the middle of the road and, of course, the recurring retro telephone. As a viewer, you find yourself naturally looking out for such things and trying to attach meaning to them. It’s utterly absorbing.
And then there’s the song itself. Crockett’s latest single and it’s absorbing melody rise above a terrific grooving pulse while Crockett sings of heart-aching, heart-breaking love. With lines like, “I know you’re leavin’ you say it’s best I be travelin’ on,” the song’s narrative centres around the life and love he has taken for granted and, as it unravels, he keeps returning to his need for this love, like an addiction.
This single is taken from ‘Music City USA’, Crockett’s upcoming new album, which is due out on 17th September. Unbelievably, it’s his tenth full-length record in six years and his second of 2021. Crockett is as consistent as he is prolific and long-time fans will continue to see him as the present and future of great country music. There’s more to his sound than this, though. In this song, and others, he manages to create a contemporary blend of roots styles that he describes as, “Gulf & Western.” Of ‘I Need Your Love’, he says: “This number here is all gulf coast music. Something you’d hear out of southeast Texas recording studios or southern Louisiana. I’d been foolin’ around with this song for a while, and when we went to record it, we decided at the last minute to double the length of the chorus. I felt right then that we had something. I’d wanted to bring the horns back for a couple tunes on this album. Soul and Country R&B from the deep south is a whole lot of who I am. I hope it shows though on ‘I Need Your Love’.” Indeed it does. Check this out while you’re waiting for the new record.
