My fellow elder millennial Charley Crockett has been a prolific force in country music over the past decade or so. Since 2015, Crockett has released 17 studio albums, including Clovis, an album re-released today, concluding a months-long saga.
Throughout 2025 and 2026, Crockett quickly churned out a trio of albums he called his Sagebrush Trilogy: Lonesome Drifter in March 2025, Dollar A Day in August, and finally Age Of The Ram on April 3 of this year. Co-produced by Crockett and his frequent co-writer Shooter Jennings, these albums were an interconnected high-concept look at the mythic American West, exploring the archetypes of the wanderer, the rustler, and the outlaw. They completed Crockett's contract with the Island Records imprint Lone Star Rider, leaving him free to return to his roots as an independent artist.
He swiftly took advantage of that freedom, surprise-releasing Clovis just three weeks after Age Of The Ram. The album was well-received, but by early May, it had been pulled from circulation due to a dispute with Island. Crockett responded by sending a street team to the CMA Awards in Nashville on June 5 to hand out free CD copies of the album. He has continued to give it away at all of his shows since then. Today, it's finally available digitally again thanks to a new deal with Atlantic Outpost, the same label that brought Sturgill Simpson back to the majors with the release of this year's Johnny Blue Skies LP. (It may be no coincidence that Apple Music started playing one of Simpson's Cutting Grass records when my listen of Clovis wrapped up.)
Texas-born Crockett takes a traditionalist tack, forgoing Nashville gloss for a throwback sound tinged with soul, folk, and blues. He's a stylistic descendent of the 1970s outlaw country movement, and Clovis lives up to that era's standard of quality. Crockett and Jennings produced it this year at the Norman Petty Studio in Clovis, New Mexico. "I don’t care if it’s Waylon Jennings or Jimi Hendrix,” Crockett told Rolling Stone regarding Clovis. “All of my favorite artists, they reach back in the past, they bring it back, and then they do something new with it. I feel that we were able to do that, whether it lands with people or not.”
In a press release announcing the album's re-release this past Monday, he noted the proximity to the 250th anniversary of the United States this Saturday:
Happy 4th of July week y’all. Sometimes you need to fight. Goliath vs Goliath. On this 250th birthday for America, I’m reminded that freedom is something you continue to fight for. A war that never ends. Today, we win one battle. Clovis is out 4th of July weekend on Atlantic Outpost. Let’s ride.
Stream Clovis below.
Clovis is out now (again) on Atlantic Outpost.
