“I shouldn’t have come here in the first place, cause folks in here don’t like my kind,” the Texas songwriter sings in the title track of his new album.

Crockett has no interest in playing the game — not the one that makes prefabricated stars anyway. In the “Music City USA” video, he seeks out the bastions of the genre, like the Ryman Auditorium, Ernest Tubb’s record shop, and even the hidden gem the Nashville Palace.

“I have a thing with Nashville,” the Texas native told Rolling Stone in March, going on to recount how his vintage sound’s been received in town. “’Sixties country music’ are not popular words to say in 2021. I’ve put out a lot of records, and it’s always the same shit, there’s always some publicist or somebody you deal with telling you not to say ‘Sixties country.’”

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Rolling Stone
Charley Crockett Skewers the Nashville Star-Making Machine in ‘Music City USA’