Rising country star Charley Crockett talks Yellowstone, Johnny Cash, and the westerns that influenced him.
The Cowboy Singer is a scholar of the western movie genre. “He’s watched all these movies a million times,” his friend and collaborator Bobby Cochran said. “He has a store of imagery that he really feels connected to. Every once in a while, we’ll try to replicate something that’s in his head, but most of the time we’ll just use that for inspiration.”
Charley Crockett (PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy Jackie Lee Young).
When I asked Charley if Taylor Sheridan, creator of Yellowstone and other contemporary westerns had been calling, he replied cryptically, “He’s got people that work for him.”
Was a collaboration inevitable?
“I’m not too sure about all that.” He half-smiled. “I am something of a western fan myself. I really like westerns. I just don’t know if I like the same westerns he does. I like all of them. I like the spaghetti westerns and the paella westerns because it’s America through the eyes of Italians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen. In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, for example, the insanity of the Civil War is framed in a way that no American had presented it at the time.
Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.
“I’m a big fan of revisionist westerns, acid westerns,” he said, citing director Robert Altman’s Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson with Paul Newman as Buffalo Bill Cody. It’s a seminal work that makes the case for the Wild West birthing show business and ushering in the age of celebrity and movie stars.
“That’s what I like about Paul Newman,” Crockett said. “If you think about it, you can’t really find a role where he’s the good guy. He’s an anti-hero. ... Vincent Price said he always preferred playing the bad guys, they get the best parts. Look at Waylon or Johnny Cash: They emit the anti-hero, kind of bad guy thing. They’re flawed, complex characters.
Paul Newman
“I found out not too far back the western genre is the least awarded genre of all American films, but overall, the most popular. I was like, ‘Well, s--t, that sounds pretty familiar.’”
Read the full Charley Crockett story.
Charley Crockett’s album $10 Cowboy comes out in April. Find out more at charleycrockett.com.
From our April 2024 issue.
