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\n\tOver the past 10 years, Charley Crockett<\/a> has released 15 albums, some just months apart. His latest, Dollar a Day<\/em>, arrives only five months since March\u2019s Lonesome Drifter<\/a><\/em>. But this cycle, at least, doesn\u2019t feel the least bit rushed or half-baked. Rather, the Texas country singer has found his groove. And, boy, is it funky.<\/p>\n \n\tCredit that partly to Shooter Jennings<\/a>, who produced Lonesome Drifter <\/em>and reteamed with Crockett for Dollar a Day. <\/em>Jennings has always been enamored of slinky, greasy country sounds \u2014 listen to his 2018\u00a0Shooter<\/a><\/em>\u00a0album \u2014 and he sprinkles those accents across most of the LP\u2019s 15 songs. The result plays like a mashup between a soundtrack to a spaghetti western and one for a 1970s crime film. And when you remember that Crockett teased Lonesome Drifter <\/em>as the first part of what he calls the Sagebrush Trilogy, Dollar a Day\u2019s <\/em>cinematic scope makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n \n\tIf there\u2019s an overarching theme to the album, it\u2019s one of being bought and sold. In the title track that opens the LP, Crockett laments that \u201ccowboys and money\u2026meet only briefly, and part company.\u201d In the plucky \u201cCrucified Son,\u201d he returns to his oft-repeated, lean-times origin story of busking and hoboing, recounting how, in Nashville, he slept behind a honky-tonk on the outskirts of town. Still, Crockett declares, \u201cI was born the lucky one.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThose songs, along with the sparse \u201cWoman in a Bar\u201d and the sad ballad \u201cI\u2019m Gonna Die With My Dreams On,\u201d are the most traditional country of the batch, and they\u2019re quite good. But the real heat of Dollar a Day <\/em>comes when Crockett leans into the weird. \u201cLonestar\u201d is a swaggering, ominous vignette in which he boasts about sporting \u201c13 diamonds around my neck.\u201d \u201cSanta Fe Ring\u201d is a tale of betrayal that gallops like \u201cGhost Riders in the Sky.\u201d And \u201cTennessee Quick Cash\u201d is a slice of swamp-country in line with Tony Joe White\u2019s \u201cPolk Salad Annie\u201d \u2014\u00a0Crockett even does some Tony Joe-like sing-speaking. \u201cHere\u2019s what I do when I walk in there,\u201d he ad libs before a guitar solo, and later shouts out Jennings as the producer plays barroom piano right into a fade-out. (In a classic Jennings studio move, the song also fades\u00a0in<\/em>.)<\/p>\n