Musician: BILLY CROCKETT

Video: “That’s Something”

BILLY CROCKETT FEATURED AT BLUE ROCK’S COOL NIGHTS 21
FINAL TWO NIGHTS—THIS THURSDAY & FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16-17

Billy Crockett, along with Liz Longley and Scott Mulvahill, will be featured at Christmas at Blue Rock for the final Cool Nights 21 livestreaming concert series—this Thursday and Friday, December 16-17.

Billy Crockett is a performing songwriter, producer and multi-instrumental session man with a dozen albums and decades of memorable songs. He is a guitar clinician for Yamaha who has been featured on BMI’s songwriter panel at SXSW, the TV series Troubadour Texas and the Academy of Gospel Music Arts.

If you haven’t been lucky enough to see Billy Crockett perform live, prepare to be blown away with his masterful guitar skills, uncanny musicianship, ability to arrange songs so it sounds full with just voice and guitar, and with his sharp incisive songwriting.

Crockett’s most recent album is In Session. In a day and age of same old, same old fast food carryout, In Session is an invitation to pause and enjoy a thoughtfully prepared full-course collection of delectable delights, each created and designed to provoke insight and enjoyment in a deeply satisfying sequence. Time and again Billy reminds us what it means to be human. He is a master of getting out of the way of what’s really important. Like trying to remember a dream from which you have just awakened, you find what is important is not so much in the details, but more in the way it made you feel. It stays with you all morning… and if you’re lucky, for the rest of your life.

Check out the livestream this Thursday and Friday, December 16-17, at Blue Rock Texas— where innovation, quality and creativity are evidenced in concerts produced with broadcast quality audio-video from their renowned Texas room—streamed straight to you. Tickets are $25. Season Passholders ($105) have a literal seat in the house—they place your headshot on a seat, so you are literally sitting in the room. Go to: https://bluerocktexas.com/events

BILLY CROCKETT Interview
with M Music & Musicians magazine publisher, Merlin David

In your most recent album, which song surprised you in the way it turned out?
“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” It was just fun to do. It was something we had played around with. I think it’s a brilliant song from Theodor Geisel—Dr. Seuss. It’s just the language, and the way that the melody and chords float by. We came at it with a very rough frame of the memory of the song. It’s the comic element of the record. We did it last, and only did one take. We let it happen. It’s kind of a dream state of trying to remember a song and having fun with it. I’m really proud of it because it’s one of those rare times where I opened it up just to see what happens.

Billy Crockett’s music is an invitation to pause and enjoy a thoughtfully prepared full-course collection of delectable delights, each created and designed to provoke insight and enjoyment in a deeply satisfying sequence. Time and again Crockett reminds us what it means to be human.  He is a master of getting out of the way of what’s really important.

How did you get the idea for In Session—one rare day in the studio, no tricks, with you and Roscoe Beck—just guitar, voice and bass?
Roscoe has the touch, and the 200 year old Italian bass, that energizes me and my songs. I brought him to Blue Rock Studio when I was producing a Darryl Purpose record and for a couple of live broadcasts during SXSW. He was between tours with Leonard Cohen, or he was just in from New York City playing with Lyle Lovett on Letterman. He was always kind and prepared—and had great stories. So the vibe was great. I began to ask him to play on my records. We were having fun, did some shows around Texas. One day after coming off a good tour, I asked him if he’d come to the studio for “whatever.” Maybe I didn’t want it to slip away. He was up for it. We set-up some mics and a couple of cameras, and we just played until we were tired.

Who originally inspired you to write songs?
Songs and songwriters were my liberators. I had never been free to feel much. It wasn’t done at my house. Jackson Browne entered with “The Pretender” and “Fountain of Sorrow.” Then, Cat Stevens with “Father and Son” and CS&N’s “Our House.” Mavis Staples. Roberta Flack. You can imagine what might have dawned on a 15 year-old kid. It was an entire language to know things, inside and out.

You wrote an amazing song about Thanksgiving.
We tracked my song “Ghosts.” I was thinking of empty chairs at a Thanksgiving reunion—a missing uncle, then a grandparent. The holiday is forever marked by who is not here. Of course, I was at the kids table then. Now I realize that in my memory, they are exactly as old as I am now. So many “ghosts I wish I’d known.”

How did the idea of “The Question Pool” come to you?
I come from a faith culture that, in many ways, wanted to “solve” the big dilemmas rather than savor them. I guess I’m wired up backwards. Hey, but so was Socrates. A writer’s gotta bring his emotional dissonance and say it out loud. My co-writer on this song, Milton Brasher-Cunningham, was game, too. Thank God.

When did this song take on new meaning for you?
I don’t know what happened to this song on that session, but it was probably the moment that made it all come into focus from me. That’s a song from quite a few years (and records) back. To be able to look at it from 25 years of life later—to come back and sing about what was heartfelt and vitally important to me then, I discovered that it had become a completely different vitality now. Sarah [Randolph] showed it to me and said, “Do you guys realize what you just did?” I showed it to others, and people thought it was timely. I realized, somehow it’s on time for now. It made me realize that this session was trying to pull the energy from wherever it was. When this song is stripped down like this—people feel like they’re really hearing your story, and they’re seeing the images. It’s somehow far more personal.

Do you remember the first time you heard one of your songs on the radio?
Oh, yes—the song was “Love Waiting” and I heard it on a Nashville station when I was 25. It was a laugh out loud, pull the car over, thrill. I was on one of those little circle roads outside of Nashville. That song had been with me for several years. I had demoed it several times. I played it for publishers—sung it a whole bunch. I recorded it with a band in my house—as good as we could. Then, I had actually gotten the attention of a major label in my genre. After they got excited about it—then, the waiting began—and more waiting. It was only a couple of years of wondering “Is this ever going to happen?” (Laughs) Then, we got the green light.

What is the best advice you’d like to give upcoming musicians?
Your instrument is your heart. Read, listen and work to increase your capacity to thrill, to weep, to know the still center of a story or the surprise waiting around the corner in the third verse. Oh, and try to give yourself a break now and again.

If you haven’t been lucky enough to see Billy Crockett perform live, prepare to be blown away with his masterful guitar skills, uncanny musicianship, ability to arrange songs so it sounds full with just voice and guitar, and with his sharp incisive songwriting.

How do you remain hopeful during tough socio-political times, including this pandemic?
I suppose it’s a cocktail of the following: Reading something honest, a bit of exercise and working on something grand with my wife, Dodee. And having a small group of writers to belong to—it seems hope requires expression. (Laughs) Also, empathy and connection—and Greta [Thunberg].

Tell us how Cool Nights 21 exceeded your expectations.
Engagement through a screen is not ideal, but here’s the thing—we bring ourselves to the encounter as much as we allow. Every Thursday I ask the artists and the audiences to suspend their disbelief and to imagine that they are here together in a real event that will never happen again. And they do. The music community has missed each other desperately and, even though only our pictures are in the same room together, the songs are delivered like medicine and the viewers know, in some crazy way, this is a communal experience, right now, like no other. You can feel it. Another lovely aspect is how the series has given us—the studio and team—a role to play in this ghostly stretch of coronavirus time. It helps to feel we are working to keep songs, artists and listeners alive.

Where can new fans get more info and stay updated?
To new fans, I say “Thanks.” The best way to stay updated is to get in the newsletter circle—for new music and shows, exclusives and first announcements.
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