Charley Crockett’s Controversial ‘Clovis’ Album Is Officially Coming Back
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- Charley Crockett announced Monday that Clovis will be officially released Friday (July 4 weekend) via the Atlantic Outpost label, resolving a months-long standoff with his former label
- Clovis was recorded earlier this year at Norman Petty Studio in Clovis, New Mexico, with Shooter Jennings producing and Crockett's band the Blue Drifters laying down the music
- Crockett had originally self-released the album in April via his $10 Cowboy Records, just weeks after Island dropped the final installment of his 'Sagebrush Trilogy' (Age of the Ram); both sides confirmed he had exited Island, and the album was pulled from streaming platforms on May 7
- Crockett and Jennings co-wrote 12 of the 14 tracks on-site at the studio; the only non-originals are the instrumental title track and Johnny Cash's 'Don't Take Your Guns to Town'
- Norman Petty Studio, where Buddy Holly cut most of his catalog, Roy Orbison recorded 'Ooby Dooby,' and a teenage Waylon Jennings recorded in 1958, had been largely preserved in its analog-era state since closing for recordings in the late 1960s
- Crockett directly addressed the 'authenticity' discourse in country music, saying: 'I am no Jimmie Rodgers. I am not Robert Johnson. I am not fucking Hank Williams. Nobody is. But, I got here the same way they did, for my generation.'
Why it matters: Crockett's July 4 re-release on Atlantic Outpost closes a turbulent three-month chapter in which he left Island Records, independently dropped the album on $10 Cowboy Records, and watched it pulled from streaming on May 7. The Independence Day timing, which Crockett himself invoked, frames the move as an artist sovereignty win while reigniting country music's authenticity debate that Crockett directly engages in the interview.
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