This story has been updated.
Charley Crockett’s Sagebrush Trilogy of albums will be completed when he releases the Shooter Jennings-produced Age Of The Ram on April 3rd via Island Records. To complete the trilogy, it will take 20 overall tracks. Like the first two albums Lonesome Drifter (March, 2025) and Dollar A Day (August, 2025), the new album is co-produced by Crockett with Shooter, including the 19th track on the album “Me and Shooter.”
Though 20 tracks might sound like a lot, five of the tracks are marked as “themes,” with three making reference to Billy McLane, who has been the main protagonist throughout the Sagebrush Trilogy, and two named “Rancho Deluxe.” With some of these tracks featuring short run times, these are likely to be recurring instrumental beds to give the album a more thematic or cinematic feel. In fact, quite a few of the tracks have shorter run times.
Charley Crockett’s last album Dollar A Day included one of these instrumental theme tracks, appropriately titled “Age Of The Ram,” making it a precursor to the new album. The cinematic, Western flair of Dollar A Day worked in Crockett’s favor, landing him a nomination for the Grammy’s Best Traditional Country Album.
No lengthy press release coincided with his announcement on social media. But with track names such as “Lonesome Dove,” “I Shot Jesse James,” “Fastest Gun Alive,” and “Powder River,” there’s a good chance it will have Western flavor once again. We’ll also have to see if the track “Low Down Freedom” is the same song that Waylon Jennings cut originally authored by Billy Joe Shaver.
Crockett did say in a post on Substack, “The Sagebrush Trilogy has always been about a man trying to find his name in this world. Lonesome Drifter was the wanderer. Boots full of highway dust, chasing a song and a dollar. Dollar A Day was the rustler. A man learning what hunger will make you do. Now the Age of the Ram tells the story of the outlaw. The kind that don’t set out to be a legend, but winds up one anyway.”
What we do have is the debut single from the album called “Kentucky Too Long,” along with the accompanying lyric video definitely not shot in Kentucky (see below). Written by Crockett, the song and the album were all cut with contributions from Crockett’s touring band The Blue Drifters consisting of guitarist Alexis Sanchez, keys and trumpet player Kullen Fox, Nathan Fleming on pedal steel, Mario Valdez on drums, and Jacob Marchese on bass.
Age Of The Ram is now available for pre-order/pre-save.
TRACK LIST:
01 Life & Times of Billy McLane (Theme I) (0:56)
02 Lonesome Dove (3:04)
03 Rancho Deluxe (Theme I) (2:06)
04 My Last Drink of Wine (3:20)
05 Fastest Gun Alive (3:07)
06 Diamond Belle (Country Boy) (2:32)
07 I Shot Jesse James (2:48)
08 Life & Times of Billy McLane (Theme II) (0:26)
09 Crazy Woman Ridge (3:30)
10 Remembering Pat (0:46)
11 Sweet Mother Texas (1:36)
12 Kentucky Too Long (3:38)
13 Drifter’s Lament (Border Winds) (0:32)
14 Rancho Deluxe (Theme II) (2:08)
15 Billy McLane (3:16)
16 Life & Times of Billy McLane (Theme III) (0:42)
17 Powder River (0:46)
18 Low Down Freedom (3:03)
19 Me & Shooter (3;12)
20 Cover My Trail Tonight (3:42)
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source savingcountrymusic.com ’
