Review: Charley Crockett brings country traditions to present day at Knitting Factory show

The last time singer-songwriter Charley Crockett visited Spokane, the venue that played host to his swaggering brand of traditional country and blues was a little different from the one he found himself in on Wednesday night at the Knitting Factory.

“The last time I was here, I played at Lucky You Lounge,” the Americana singer-songwriter from San Benito, Texas, said toward the end of his set in a Southern drawl as thick as Rio Grande mud.

Crockett, aided by live drums, upright bass, organ, lead guitar and pedal steel, dazzled for a nearly two-hour set that touched on almost all imaginable cornerstones of the American musical language, from country, blues, rockabilly, bluegrass, Western and R&B before a near-capacity crowd of fellow believers of the old school.

Crockett and the Blue Drifters, his backing band, performed in pinstripe suits and cowboy hats with hip-swinging abilities that Dwight Yoakam would surely approve of, all as a collective callback to the earliest legends of country music that showed up, and showed off, with sharp aesthetics and dexterous musicianship to match.

The night’s long list of covers, which included artists like Willie Nelson (“Make Way for a Better Man”), Tanya Tucker (“Jamestown Ferry”) and Jerry Reed (“I Feel for You”) were as well-received and tightly performed as Crockett originals “Welcome to Hard Times” and “I Am Not Afraid” (which has 14 million Spotify streams).

Favoring material from 2021’s “Music City USA” (which was No. 1 on Americana radio charts for six consecutive weeks following its release) and 2020’s “Welcome to Hard Times,” Crockett’s set was a testament to how much musical ground the 38-year-old subway busker-turned-star has made, not to mention “Lil G.L. Presents: Jukebox Charley,” which was released Friday, his 11th album in the last six years.

Near the end of the night, Crockett reintroduced opening act Vincent Neil Emerson to sing “Devil in a Sleepin’ Bag,” which confirmed all suspicions about the origin of the latter’s own Nelsonesque approach to songwriting and uncompromisable focus on sincerity and lyricism that was seen in his opening set.

Emerson and Crockett, who have been friends since meeting in the Dallas music scene 11 years ago, each served up their own sounds of yesteryear as a vehicle for modern urgency; Emerson dedicated his time and tunes to all Indigenous people (his mother is of Choctaw-Apache descent), and Crockett recounted the importance of the love in his life over chords that could’ve been woven by Tom T. Hall or Roger Miller themselves.

Not only were both artists meticulous students of their style (Emerson also covered John Hartford’s “Gentle on My Mind and Neil Young’s “Cowgirl in the Sand”), but employed backing bands exclusively sourced from all four quadrants of their native Lone Star State, with the pedal steel heroics of Ian Taylor Sutton highlighting Emerson’s set and multi-instrumentalist Kullen Fox handling organ, trumpet, accordion and piano duties for Crockett with ease.

Wednesday night’s congregation of the honky tonk faithful, bearing witness to rising stars like Emerson and flag-bearers like Crockett, prove that the inspiring tradition of country music will also be the very thing that leads it into its future.