Howard Crockett - Out Of Bounds

Honky Tonk Man returns for rediscovery

Where do you draw the line between bad luck, bad judgement and general cussedness? Howard Crockett ran with all three during his long and patchy career as a country singer and songwriter. He also ran into the peculiar practices of the music industry very early on: one of the first songs he pitched to recording star Johnny Horton was Honky Tonk Man (later a hit for Dwight Yoakam too), but to get Horton to record it he had to sign over a third of the rights to the singer and a third to the singer’s manager. Nevertheless, this got Crockett off the mark and into a recording contract of his own with a backing band that included Chet Atkins and The Jordanaires. It also got him a new name, since his family name of Hausey was not considered sufficiently Texan.

His songwriting was rated, but Crockett never found much success as a singer, although this Bear Family collection demonstrates clearly that he had a good voice and could put material across well. The 36 tracks help to shine a light on Rockabilly heritage, but as Crockett’s regular guitarist Cecil McCullough notes, “At the time we did not call the kind of music we played rockabilly. It was just good, upbeat country music.”

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

BCD | 16794 AH

Reviewed by Tim Holmes
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