With $10 Cowboy, Charley Crockett didn’t set out to make a themed record. Writing freely over a two-month period, as he wound his way across the United States on the back of a tour bus, the resulting songs—raw, personal, vivid portraits of a country in transition—ended up being connected after all. As the album unfolds, you begin to understand that a $10 Cowboy is anyone who has hustled to get by, who didn’t fit in, who has slept on other people’s couches, or the street, who has fallen down, gotten up, and ventured from home chasing a paying gig, or a new start. No, Crockett didn’t set out to write a themed record. Or, through his studied eye, to find America. But with $10 Cowboy, he might have done both.