There's a striking duality to newcomer Jeremy Crady, a sense that competing or contradictory energies have somehow settled into an uneasy peace in his artistic vision. But as Smoke Wagon Serenade unfolds, those seeming divergent themes begin to look like perfect complements to each other. And it's amazing just how easy he makes it look. This is no forced convergence, it's simply who he is.

He's a Dallas native unafraid to speak the Texas music heresy that his music dreams must take flight in Nashville. He's a disciple of the rich but uncompromising West Texas tradition whose first and greatest musical passion is the most successful commercial recording artist in history. He's made his own independent record with a band whose work resides in more CD collections than any other in the world. He's a songwriter's writer, devoted to his craft and possessed of a keen eye for the kind of detail that makes songs play in cinemascope. And he's also an experienced performer blessed with a tenor like roughly sanded Texas pine.

Most of all, he's a young, talented and thoughtfully-imaged aspiring country artist who unapologetically wants to put the "& western" back into the world's vocabulary.
This is Jeremy Crady.

"My dad was a band director and a minister of music at a Baptist church," Crady says. "So I definitely remember that first church performance, my brother on the front row making fun of me. Yeah, it seems like that cliché every artist tells, but my parents never really pushed me toward it. I got there on my own."

A theater production in grade school gave him the performance bug - "I knew at that point that singing and being in front of people was the thing" - but the contagion that led to the full-fledged fever of obsession came from his older brother.

"He and his friends started listening to this guy Garth Brooks and I remember thinking, 'Whoa, what is that?' One of my earliest prized possessions was a Discman, and I remember sitting outside at school recess with it and the No Fences album. Kids were coming over asking me to play and I was like, 'No. I'm busy.' That's one of the enduring memories of my childhood."

Garth was just the gateway drug, however, as Jeremy burned through the collected works of country music. "If somebody like Alan Jackson said something about an artist they liked, then I had to go check that out, too. So I worked my way back into country music history but kept current at the same time."

Incredibly industrious in high school, Crady played football, sang in choir and show choir - all while attending night courses and summer school to fit everything into his schedule. He was so focused on attending the commercial music program at South Plains College that he skipped his senior year of high school.

The school is located in Levelland, Texas - "where you can stand on a box and see the back of your head," he jokes - and has passed artists including Lee Ann Womack
and Natalie Maines through its halls. "From freshman year, I was going to be a songwriter and performing artist. I ended up being in several school groups and other bands. It was the beginning of really developing my songwriting craft.

"I started out really into mainstream country, but when I went to Levelland I got turned on to the West Texas stuff," Crady says. "Robert Earl Keen, Joe Ely, Lyle Lovett. It shaped me. You take all this polished stuff and then through a bag of gravel in there and mix it up. College was a big period of musical growth just from the standpoint of you are what you eat. And I'm so thankful for that time in my life."

Levelland was also where he began playing live shows in earnest, particularly at the Bluelight in Lubbock, which has since become a top venue on the Texas circuit. After his two years at the junior college, Crady transferred to the University of Texas. Austin.

Being in one of the foremost creative communities in the world helped Jeremy take his music a step further. "If you can keep playing George Strait and Pat Green songs, you can keep a crowd happy in Texas," he says. "Playing those honkytonks is educational, but I wanted to write songs and eventually make an album."

Enlisting friends from his South Plains days, Crady went into an Austin studio and cut One New Standard & 11 Other Songs. "One of my friends is an engineer and we brought in some established players." Though pleased with the effort, Nashville still pulled at him.
"Everyone knew that's where I was going," Crady says. "I wasn't shy about it. When I didn't show up my senior year of high school there were rumors I went to Nashville and was touring. My cousin would call me and tell me all these crazy stories. I thought it was great.
"I love Austin and mourn the day I left," he continues. "The countdown is on until the day I can go back. But I can blame this whole thing on Garth Brooks, like so many people my age, I guess. I made my family take vacations in Nashville growing up. I was a country music nerd. Going to Nashville was always going to be a good thing for me."

With an album in hand, Crady made it to Music City and started making the rounds. "The album everyone in Texas told me was a little too Nashville turned out to be a little too Texas when I played it here."

Undeterred, Jeremy continued developing his songwriting. "I never co-wrote before I came to Nashville. Here, it's all you get. Through the course of five years I found some people I can really work with and we really get along. This is entertainment, after all. If it's not fun you're doing it wrong."

One of his favorite collaborators, Stan Webb ("I'm From The Country"), introduced him to accomplished writer and session drummer Milton Sledge, who played on the entire Garth Brooks catalog.

"After four years of hoping the writing would lead me into an artist career I realized I needed to make it happen on my own," Crady says. "Plus, the deals they started offering for new artists just weren't going to be something I would sign anyway.

"Milton and I got to know each other and I started thinking about making an EP. I asked if he'd be interested in producing and he was so encouraging and said he'd do anything he could to help. Only problem was we had four years of songs to pick from, so the EP idea quickly became an album."

As the first session date approached, Sledge came to Jeremy with an idea. "He said he thought it would be fun to get the Garth band back together. I played it cool like, 'Yeah, okay. Sounds good.' But I'm thinking this is unbelievable!

"The first day in the studio I'm a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I'm trying to be cool, but I'd been listening to those guys since I was a kid. They're nice and professional. We live with the tracks a little while and Milton starts talking about putting another band together for the next session. But we're both kind of digging the vibe we had going on the first batch. And that turns in to him rounding them up again.

"The triumph for me was the second day in the studio because they all showed up with a little bit more pep in their step. Happy to see me. They were excited to show back up. And to me, whatever else happens, that means everything."

The creative spark that infused those sessions can be heard throughout Smoke Wagon Serenade. The album opens with the loping shuffle and weaving fiddle of "Cowtown" and slides smoothly into the pulsing bass of "Missing You Already." "Spanish Candle" is framed by evocative flamenco guitar lines, while "The Toughest Ride" offers a radio-ready take on the classic rodeo song.

Fun reigns on "Flip-Flop Cowboy," "Without You," "El Camino Casanova" and "Women Are My Whiskey." But Crady's sense for emotion, drama and character shine through on "New Look At An Old Cross," "I Dreamed Of You" and "Mexican Angel." And if you're going to do a cover, George Strait's solo-penned "I Can't See Texas From Here" fits pretty nicely. Finally, "Can't Blame A Lady" waltzes the album off into the sunset on the same western-bred horse on which it first arrived.

"I thought about naming the album C&W Rides Again," he says, only half kidding. "I'm all about the '& W.' Whatever happened to that?"

Bridging that divide is a goal, but it's also something more. The country essence, the western sensibilities, the devotion to craft, the unbridled creativity, the commercial ear and the artistic passion aren't simply external affectations to be grasped and shaped. They are at the very core of an artist who embodies each one without favor or prejudice. This is Jeremy Crady.