Patrick Crowson

It starts somewhere around Cisco Pike, a man with a hard-shell case walking in profile, going to meet a man ? probably not about a horse. The sun is sharp, and judging by his coat, there's some chill in that sunlight. There's music playing, accoustic guitar surrounded by a full arrangement, and a voice singing about the past, and how remembering it is a hell of a lot easier than facing what's ahead.

The man, of course, is a drug dealer played by Kris Kristofferson, and he's coming to give a guitar and a way of seeing to some teenage mug from the Midwest named Patrick Crowson. There'd be other heroes, too. The late, great Townes, the Willie Nelson of 'Red Headed Stranger', and Haggard, naturally, (though it's not in Crowson's fingers to pick you to pieces like Merle, or, hell, Jerry Reed for that matter). But the particular method of conveying that longing, with a mixture of physical detail followed by a summary line you can hang your hat on ? the way of being elegiac and clear-eyed at the same time ? strikes me as coming from that man and his hard-shell case.

Then there's Josh Allen, Meanwhiles auteur, soundtrack composer, with a suitcase in his hand, bringing temperature to the air outside the rooms where loss is taking place. There's a little more light on the proceedings thanks to this man, both candle and electric. It's a neat trick, to clarify the shadows without taking them away. But bless him, Josh let's the man do his one thing he does well, well ? I'd have had to kick his ass if he hadn't.

Finally, it's about splitting a bottle with Crowson, sitting back and listening to a new song of his weave four, five minutes late at night. There are empties underfoot, a cat somewhere around the toe of your boot. It's pleasantly dark, but maybe that's your vision fading. Crowson plays his new song. You listen to its crooked path without trying to follow it. Your head starts nodding, not with sleep, but in agreement, not like for what Townes did when he reduced a whiskeyed-up farrier to a red-eyed mess, but like for what Dylan did to Peckinpah when he sang him, "Billy, you're such a long, long way from home" over coke, weed and tequila until Sam broke down and said, "You cocksucker, you son of a bitch," with tears in his eyes.

www.patrickcrowson.com
Paul Bodig