With his new album, I’m Your Man, Nashville's Chris Crofton has a simple goal - “I want to connect with listeners on a deep level, in plain language, just like the singer-songwriters of the 1970s connected with me.”
Artists like Gordon Lightfoot and Carly Simon.
“She [Simon] wrote about the most personal, often devastating things, and made her confessions catchy, and beautiful,” Crofton said.
But the writing process for this, his second solo album, was different than in the past. “I used to wait for songs to 'arrive' — to land on me from the heavens. But, unbeknownst to me, an anti-seizure drug that I had been taking for 20 years was literally making it harder for me to think.”
The drug caused “brain fog” - and bone loss that resulted in a broken hip in 2018. He was able to safely wean himself off the medication (with a doctor’s help) in the early months of 2019 and, thankfully, didn’t need to find a replacement .
From the difficult withdrawal, he emerged markedly energized. “I was suddenly able to write at any time of the day, not just after my first cup of coffee, so I decided to write an album.”
Musically, I’m Your Man delivers the catchy, honest acoustically-driven songs that Crofton has always written. The difference is, the songs on I’m Your Man are almost all anthems. Epic meditations on big subjects: aging, recovery, depression, medication …John Denver - and, of course, his favorite topic - loneliness. Its eleven tracks are bolstered by an all-star cast of supporting musicians, including Jim James, Bo Koster (My Morning Jacket), Jenny O, Kevin Ratterman (Yim Yames, Twin Limb), Leslie Stevens and Alex McMahon (The Handsome Family).
Shimmering keys on “Hard Way,” psychedelic pedal steel on “Vitamin D,” the “Some Velvet Morning”-esque guitars of “I Don't Believe” and Jim James’ wild shredding over the bridge of “Side Effects” are all parts of the rich, layered arrangements. Producer Kevin Ratterman took Crofton’s heartfelt hooks and honest lyrics, and added a supercharged aura. A heightened, ethereal atmosphere that transcends and elevates its singer-songwriter underpinnings.
“Side Effects” is one of the first songs he finished for the record. It’s about his experiences with the mental health industry, and builds to an angry, epic catharsis. “Vitamin D” navigates the desperate drudgery of depression with melodies worthy of a classic John Denver track. “Hard Way” is a haunting, funny and inspiring cautionary tale about the dangers of conflating alcohol and art. “I’d Sure Like to See You” makes the pining for love sound darkly glorious, while “Dreaming of You” bounces and swirls you into the bittersweet ecstasy of someone finally coming to terms with a relationship’s end.
The songs ruminate on lost love, and love to come. They walk bravely through the hills and valleys of melancholy on paths you'll want to take again and again. And yes, the album’s title, I’m Your Man, is a nod to the work of Leonard Cohen, a poet and songwriter known for being strong and sensitive. Crofton's new work is both of those things.
Chris has spent decades on stage. As a solo singer-songwriter, he’s opened for alt-rock vets Deer Tick and The Handsome Family. He was an actor in New York before moving to Nashville in 2001 to form a band that performed drunken, memorable shows around the city for years. After sobering up, he embraced stand-up comedy and had a lengthy stint in LA.
Today he regularly writes insightful and humorous pieces for the Nashville Scene, an alt-weekly, and he published a book The Advice King Anthology for Vanderbilt University Press in 2022. His first solo album, Hello It's Me (Arrowhawk) was released in 2018.
