The South Texas singer and guitarist spent his youth roaming—learning the drinking songs of the French Quarter firsthand, busking on New York City subway platforms, performing in communes in Northern California. These days, Charley Crockett seems to sublimate his restless wanderlust into endless touring and prolific recording; Lonesome Drifter, co-produced by Shooter Jennings, is his 16th record in nine years. Its dreamy outlaw ballads and honky-tonk numbers tell a story about hustling in America (“That old-time feeling just up and walked away/Left me with these interest rates,” he sings on “Game I Can’t Win”), and meanwhile, a story of his years spent on the road. “My age is showing in a motel mirror,” he confesses over organ chords on “Under Neon Lights.” And the wistful “Life of a Country Singer” is a ballad of a liminal existence that unfolds in-between spaces, somewhere between dusk and dawn, and between right and wrong. “There’s a long, long line of country singers, singing songs about livin’ late at night,” he drawls, admitting “I ain’t the first one, or the best—but I’m different.”