Music Saved Me taking all over thanks stuff, and I think that's the beauty of the art of music is never overthinking. I mean I practice every day, but practice guitar, I practice piano, practice writing.
It's what I love to do.
Welcome to another episode of Music Saved Me, the podcast where we explore the transformative power of music through the stories of artists, songwriters and musicians who have found hope, healing, and inspiration in their craft. I'm your host, Lynn Hoffman, And by the way, if you like this podcast, we would love for you to check out our companion podcast that I also host called Comedy Saved Me, which showcases the healing power of laughter. Today, we are so honored
to welcome a very special guest, Aj Crochey. As a celebrated singer, songwriter, and pianist. Aj is carved out a unique path in the world of music, blending soulful, blues, rock, and pop influences. The son of legendary musician Jim Crochey, AJ has faced his own share of challenges and personal loss, yet he has consistently turned to music as a source of comfort and resilience, and on this episode, Aja shares his journey from growing up surrounded by music, to overcoming
adversity and forging his own identity as an artist. We'll talk about the songs that shaped his life, some of the stories behind his acclaimed albums, and how music has been both a lifeline and a source of joy throughout his career. So settle in for an inspiring conversation about creativity, perseverance, and the healing magic of music with the one and only AJ Crochy right here on Music Saved Me. Aj. Welcome to Music Save Me. It's so wonderful to have you here.
Thank you, Lynn, I appreciate it. Now.
I want to start sort of in the early side of things with you, because this is something that blew me away when I first read about you. First of all, you lost your dad when you were much much younger, very young, and then you lost your eyesight a couple.
Of years later when I was four.
I lost my sight, lost my father at two, and I was in the hospital for six months. During that period of the loss of sight regained partially. I got light in my left eye, and so there was hope. It took about six years before I could see out of my left eye again. So I was completely blind and illegally blind during that time, and and music saved me, it really did.
I mean, as a kid.
I had my father's record collection, which was so diverse and amazing, I mean, all the good stuff. As a kid, you know, I would find the good stuff I couldn't see, but I would always put it on the left side, so I'm left handed, so I'd.
Reached for one of those records.
And you know, I got turned onto Ray Charles real early and Stevie Wonder because for obvious reasons of losing sight and just inspiration.
And they were a foundation for me.
You know, Ray Charles played all kinds of music and I can hear it in the other stuff that was in the collection, from Fats Waller and Bessie Smith and the Lady behind Me and and and there was great blues and folk and country music, all kinds of rock and roll and Little Richard. I mean that stuff. It just it blew me away. And as a kid, it was my it was my sanctuary. It was it was everything. So you know, I started playing piano along with that stuff before I could see.
Wow, that's incredible, but it definitely shows how you can pull on the other senses that become extremely powerful at that time.
Yeah, the sense I think people don't necessarily think about is the sense of of of heart, the sense of soul and and intention. I think when you lose a particular sense, you are vulnerable in a in a particular way, and and so you find a way to to sort of compensate. And and in that way, recognizing decent people from from indecent is really important at a young age, you know, and and and understanding the intentions of of the things that you're seeing or hearing or feeling is
is really important. So it's not always like, oh, I you know, I couldn't see so I could hear better. It wasn't you're forced to listen harder.
You're not.
It's not that you hear better, you know. It's not that you taste more. It's it's.
It's not like Synastasia or something. It's just kind of necessity.
It's just I never evenly even thought about it that way. But you're so right. When you're forced into it, you have really no choice but to rely on those senses to make it. I'm just curious, when were you aware of your dad and his incredible accomplishments in this world.
I guess I grew up from the earliest days.
I mean my first concert was I was brought as a baby just to hear my dad.
And Randy Newman, you know, and Randy Newman played a big role.
You know. They were on tour together for a year, on and off for a year. And you know, my father's career was eighteen months. You know, his entire professional career. All the songs you know, were written, recorded, and toured in eighteen months. So it's three albums eighteen months and done. So it was a relatively short period of time.
Wow. Were there artists or genres that inspired you early on that made you feel like this was something that you could do as your art form?
Yeah? Absolutely. As I mentioned Ray Charles was he was my gateway drug. You know.
In in the collection there was stuff like Fat Swaller, there was stuff like Little Richard, there was there were there were wonderful piano players in that mix.
But I, as as I got older, really.
Went down that that rabbit hole of piano players, you know, from the stride guys like James P. Johnson and Will lyon to the to the boogie guys and like med Lux Lewis and Albert Ammon's Pete Johnson, the swing guys like Ellington and Basie and so many others. I mean, I could name the jazz piano players for probably forty five minutes or.
An hour, and it all played a role.
But then also whether it was rock and roll and listening to the way that the English bands UH interpreted blues and someone like Ian McCloughan and how how he played with the small faces and the Faces and Dylan and the Stones and stored all those guys that were that were Steve Wynwood, that were really interpreting an American tradition and and I you know, as a kid, I liked a lot of that, but it was in my teens I started to recognize what they did that was different,
kind of simplified what the American players were doing.
It was just part of like gaining knowledge and learning.
And so it was you know, when I first when I first met Leon Russell before we started writing together, it was one of those things where we just spoke about pana players for an hour, you know, because then we had.
The same apparently we grew up with the same record collection.
Peek out with something like I love that, Yeah.
And of course I loved his music and is playing and songwriting, but it was it was really our deeper connection to being piano players, you know. And the New Orleans stuff played a huge role Alan Tussont. From the time I was about thirteen as a kid, my mom would sing some of these songs Leap Dorsey working in
a coal mine, thinks that Alan Toussant had written. I knew the songs, heard him on the radio, all of the great artists that he worked with, but it didn't click until I was about thirteen and I went to see Jim Jarmusch movie and I think it was like Stranger Than Paradise or something, and there was a version of Irma Thomas singing its Raining and which is an
all and two song production song. He's playing and singing on it, and I just had to know everything about the music, where it came from, who it wasn't just it wasn't because it was complicated, like the complicated stuff. I was already diving into the jazz and the blues and the stride and all of that, but gospel and soul music, but it was something that was in its simplicity, could communicate such depth that I had to understand how it was done.
Wow, I mean, that's fascinating that you would even pick up on that. Was there anything in there that told you that this is healing me? Or when you realize that music could be healing for not only the musicians but the people listening to it.
I knew that from the earliest point in my life, you know, as a kid that lost his sight, being able to to sit down and play a piece of music was it was more than just healing.
It was empowering.
It was it was incredibly powerful. I knew that it was my refuge, and at a certain point I recognized that I was able to sort of communicate that to, you know, to a small audience.
You know, I played my first gig at twelve for money, and for you, it was for a it.
Was for a bought mitzvah and I Love the Silverman, Bob Mitzvah and and it was twenty bucks and I played. I played Ray Charles and Chuck Berry and Memphis Slim and I'm sure a few other, you know, oddball things for a twelve year old to be playing, but it was it was what I was listening to is what I would do and so you know, at that point I realized I got twenty bucks. Wow, if I keep practicing and really work hard at this, I might be able to do this for a living.
You know, amazing. How do you channel these personal experiences, both you know, the joy and the pain into your songwriting.
I'm curious, Well, it's all there.
I mean, it's all here. It's in us all the time. It's not about I don't think it needs to be channeled as much as it just you need to be I think there's a part of it where you need to let go. I think letting go is more of it's losing a sense of control as opposed to trying
to control the environment. By letting go of the idea that what you might write or say or play is not good, or there's a stake, or you're you know some or or it's been done before, or I've heard that line or I've heard that passage, or the melody of that is similar to this, or the chord structure is similar. Forget it. It's an exercise. No one needs to hear it. This is about being completely free and being able to, in that way access the beauty of what's around you.
All the time?
What's in you all the time? It's it's really it's trying to channel things. I think that makes it harder to get there.
Yes, And you know, it's interesting that you would say that. For my next question, that really makes me curious finding your own voice. Now you've already faced such adversity from such a young age. You've already figured out at a young age how to use music to heal not only yourself but others and to be strong. And you know, Liss almost in a way, how did it ever occur to you that you had to sort of identify yourself as your own artists because of the fame that your
dad had. I mean, I would think that that would be another roadblock that you would have to overcome.
Absolutely, it was.
It was the It was probably the biggest roadblock. And and I don't know if it was only external.
I think it was internal as well.
Right.
I think that the fact that in.
My up until my thirties, I didn't play guitar, so piano was first of all, was my was my instrument.
And and it was.
So by that by being playing a different instrument, I was already a little bit separate. By the fact that I was playing more complicated music, and it albeit you know, maybe from my grandparents generation, some of it was from my parents generation. There were, you know a few groups of my generation that I was I was really really liked a lot.
But it was.
I was looking for a timelessness. It wasn't about when the music was from or whatever. I was looking for finding a way to create something that could have been written, you know, one hundred and fifty years ago, or it could have been written yesterday, and not knowing when that is gives you this flexibility. I think as an as an artist, each component of what I do as a performer in communicating with an audience, that's one skill set that took development. As a singer, that was another skill
that took that took developing and understanding and work. As a piano player, that was enough. That was its own thing. Being being a piano player was its own thing, separate from playing any other inst or other keyboard instruments or anything.
And then as a songwriter, and you know, I think some people might think that it all comes together and is developed simultaneously, and there's a part of it if you're working on each facet that is simultaneous because by becoming a better musician, you're giving yourself a better platform to write a better song, to create.
A better melody.
And by living life, the longer you live, the better understanding of the world around you you might have. But it all developed differently from me. You know, I think I was a stronger piano player when I was, you know, in my late teens than I was a singer. I think the songwriting sort of came up in between the two. And you know, I had bad habits as a singer because I really came up.
In jazz clubs and blues clubs where there was.
No amplification, so I was shouting over the piano and shouting over an instrument that large, you know, you tend to, you know, grasp me real fast.
And I was.
I had bad habits, you know, for the first ten years of touring. You know, it was creating issues. And you know, you learn along the way, You learn to be better at what you do and improve and continue to learn.
That is so true, and hindsight is so twenty twenty, isn't it. And when people say terms like that to you, they may not mean anything at the time, but then you look back and you go, oh, that's that's why someone told me that, or that's that means. It means so much more. And you did blend a lot of really cool stuff, I mean blues, rock and pop and jazz and all of that is it's so unique.
We'll be right back with more of the Music Save Me Podcast. Welcome back to the Music Saved Me Podcast.
Can you walk as well? I think you just did a little bit of your creative process when when you're making like when you're writing a new song or putting together a new album, is there anything that you do specifically to get in that headframe or.
You know, each record is it's kind of unique.
And I've found in being able to look back with twenty twenty Vision the only time I've had that.
No pun intended, Oh my gosh it looking back.
I think I think I've seen albums sort of work in threes. The first one is kind of just getting into finding this sound and space and storytelling style that is work. It's like a palette, and I felt like it's kind of functioned that way throughout throughout my career. You know, on my eleventh just released the eleventh album, and it sort of works in threes, in that you have a palette of colors you're working with, and they are used, and you find new ways to use those
to create new music and songs. And you might work in that period with five or six or seven different chord changes that are unique to themselves, tempos, time signatures, all of these things that are relevant to that period of time. And then and then by the end of that third album, I find that I'm already ready to do something new, and I've used those colors, and I'll continue to be able to use that because I perform live all the time, which means that the music from
those albums is still present. It's I don't need to put it away. It's in fact, because I'm not putting it away, I'm able to move to something else, find new inspirations, you know, different styles of music, different genres of music, whether it's Latin music or whether it's you know, West African influences or or Indian scales or whatever it might be, Western European classical music. There's no limitations to it. But they it's for me. It sort of comes in threes.
Interesting, You're like a musical athlete.
I don't know, you know, it takes. This is a calling, you know, this is this is I've I've worn a lot of hats in the in the business of music because it's a necessity, certainly as an artist. I think, you know, my first couple albums were on a major label and then I was on indies, and I figured once I was on indies, I really had to learn every facet of the business because the bottom line is, you know, the artist is paying for everything, yep, and so you want to make sure you know where the
money's going. You want to make sure that you're responsible with it because this is your livelihood. And as time changed and there were a lot of different changes in the in the business itself, I had to be aware of it and had to be involved. Yeah, more than just adapt, I had to be involved, and I had to be more than just involved, but engaged.
Now that you know, somebody very smart, and I wish I could remember who it was in my life growing up when I was younger, told me, whatever it is you want to do in life, the job that it is, make sure that when you get there, you also get to know how everyone else does their job right, because it will make your life much easier. And also you'll have a better understanding so that I've never actually heard anyone say that before, especially being an artist, So that's
pretty cool. I mean that must also mean you've got both sides of the brain firing at the same time, which can also be a detriment to some of us. You never get anything done.
I can all overthink stuff, and I think that's the beauty of the art of music, is never overthinking. I mean I practice every day. I practice guitar, I practice piano, practice writing. It's what I love to do. And I need to be able to live life in between the recording and the touring and the writing and the practice, because that's where all of the stories come from.
It's where you would draw your inspiration, right And.
The bottom line is that is that whether it's instrumental or there's lyrics to a song, you're telling a story. I think it's really important to be able to tell a universal story in a very clear way. Obviously it's universal, so you want anyone that's listening to be able to get it. Maybe not be their style, or may may not may not be what some people listen to, but they're going to appreciate that it's it's a complete and
well crafted story. And that's and that's the goal, you know, is writing a timeless, universal story and having a beginning, a middle, and an end. And the frame that you put around it, which is the production, can can vary.
You know.
It can be as simple as metaphorically as a magnet that goes on a fridge or a beautiful or ornate you know, rococo frame that that has a lot to say and contribute to the art inside of it.
And I love that you brought that up, though, And I love that you brought up the fact that you have to live a certain way in order to create these masterpieces. And in order to do that, you have to know, like oxygen mask on you first. You know, if you can't live that lifestyle that you want to live to be inspired to write these songs, then where are you?
You know, So it's.
Almost like you need to know what to do when you are successful.
I don't know that I ever think about the success factor, because I feel that being able to do what I love is a success and I don't ever think of anything as being a masterpiece.
It's an exercise.
I call it that thought, because I think anyone who can do what you do. Well, that's just my personal.
Well, that's very that's very kind. But I think I think of it as an exercise.
Some of them, you know, just like just like inn at tude, you know of showpins.
These were these were practice scales.
They were working with every key, they were working with all of these different facets that were designed to teach his students, and in the process, some of them, you know, became, I guess from the outside world, you know, masterpieces or or at least a masterpiece of how to exercise and practice. And I think that's that's sort of the thing. I've never known anyone that finished a song and when oh, that's that is a master I.
Don't think i'd hang out with him if I didn't.
I think you just you finished something and you're like, okay, I think we did good.
If you're co writing or I accomplished what I wanted.
And sometimes you know, you're like, I said it all in in, you know, in three verses in a chorus.
I don't need a bridge.
I don't if you can't say things succinctly and communicate an idea in two and a half to three minutes, which is kind of the mass maximum in span of most people. Then you know you need to look at it and see what you can do. And I think that's another facet of songwriting. You know, I've written with the idea of the same story. I have an idea of a story, I have an idea of how I want to tell it, and it might take five or
six attempts before I finally get the one. And this music could change, the melodies could change, it could be a completely different style, but the story finds a home.
Wow, that right there, You hit the nail right on the head. The story is really if you don't start with a good story, then what do you have?
Right, Yeah, just like a movie or you know, it's the subject of a painting or sculpture, if, if, if, if the subject is uninteresting, then it's unlikely to move in you want.
So how do you How do you hope music impacts listeners who may be struggling or facing their own struggles at this time.
I always joke that I want to bring crying back.
It's so good though sometimes you need to, you know you do.
And but there's I'm joking when I say that.
Wait, that actually.
Works though, I'm bringing sexy back. You can put cry and it's got the same syllables in there.
I think if it yeah abbreviated, but I think it.
But I think it's honestly, it's one of those things where when you are sincere in what you're doing, and and all of the work that you've put into being the artist that you are is present, and you are playing to the best of your ability and performing to the best of your ability. I think it's I think it moves people. And it doesn't need to be always, doesn't need to be necessarily particularly great. It needs to be pure, it needs to be sincere, it needs to
be organic. I had a conversation I had dinner many years ago.
I was on the same label.
As a well known musician named Tut Steelman. He was an harmonica player, great jazz harmonica player, great guitar player, and his harmonica playing was really iconic. We were sitting and having dinner and he said, you know, when someone plays to the best of their ability, everyone has a different level of ability. You know, you have someone like John Coltrane or Charlie Parker who have this natural ability.
You know that is so amazing.
Stevie wonder but if they aren't pushing themselves to play at their at the highest level that they're capable of.
It doesn't connect.
Whereas someone that doesn't have half that ability plays with all of their heart and gives it everything they've got.
That's going to be the thing that you connect with.
And even if it's terrible, you're going to be you're not going to be able to look away because they're putting everything they have into it, which is I think the whole purpose of TikTok.
Oh my gosh, you aren't kidding.
It's like, you know, being able to see people do the best they can at a.
You know, improbable level. It's authentic piece.
It's authentic, Yeah, definitely. It's you know, when you see someone learn something for the first time and they're so excited about it, or when you write a song and I know a lot of people feel this way. You write a song, don't quite know all of it, but you're just so excited about it.
Sometimes that first recording.
Of it is the best you know, and sometimes that first understanding of what it is as a demo really captures what the song is. That's why I don't like recording demos. I want to just go in if I think the song is good, or perform it live and see if the audience thinks it's any good and if they connect with it, then I'll know, Okay, this is one that could be on the record.
Does it fit the other songs? As the other question? Just enough? But yeah, I mean I think it's a living, breathing art and being able to.
Practice it every day and be able to perform it in front of people as a gift, it sure is.
And it's also great advice what you just said for anyone looking to do what you're doing for a career and or who may be going through a tough time, which it seems that there seems to be a lot of that going on these days, people absolutely searching for things.
I don't know if if you know, sad songs can sometimes resonate when you're when you're when you're down, when you're when you're sad yourself, and you listen to a sad song, I find oftentimes that's the most powerful because you can connect to it in a way that if you just put on some up tempo piece of ear candy,
it's not going to necessarily pull you out. Hey, you know, Yeah, whereas whereas hearing something that's a little bit darker, you have all of a sudden you're inspired by this beauty, you know.
Oh yeah, I mean I can think about being dumped by a guy in high school and turning on a station back home called Magic and listening to, you know, a ballad from Chicago and then crying my eyes out and then feeling so much better.
Exactly it's cathartic.
Yes, it really does help, so bring crying back. I love that. Can I ask you before I let you go a couple of quick hits with you? What is one song that you wish you had written?
Well, you know, why would I wish I had written it? You know, like you know We Will Rock You has played at every stadium and every everywhere in the world.
I don't know that there's a song that I wish I would have written.
There's so many out there, and there's so many that have yet to be written that there's not like a reason to want to capitalize on someone else's art.
I love your answer all right now. If you could collaborate with an artist living or from the past, who would it be?
McCartney? Probably?
I just think he has you know, he has the ability to be a chameleon, you know. Stylistically, he draws from so many different places, from from old jazz and blues to rock and roll and everything. I just you know, he's a complete artist, and I think that's that's inspiring. But I could I could name, you know, two hundred artists that I would love to play with and collaborate with, you know.
Aj Croachey. It's been such a pleasure having you. I know that you're pressed for time otherwise because I have a million other questions for you. But maybe he'll come back and visit us again.
You just let me know.
Lynn, thank you so much for coming on Music Save Me and sharing your story, and it's been so I I love learning things from people, and I definitely learned things from you today, So thank you for that.
We likewise, thank you so much