Lynn Crossett - Autumn to August (2025)

San Marcos, Texas musician Lynn Crossett has a new album out, Autumn to August. Surrounding himself with respected Texas musicians Lloyd Maines, Dennis Ludiker and Carter Crossett, Lynn has ensured a rich quality band sound on the album. He weaves together from on the one hand, his one love as Law professor with, on the other hand, his other love of songwriting and musicianship, Lynn laces together nostalgic storytelling and rootsy instruments with a welcoming ease.

“Something in Your Day” opens the album spaciously with banjo and melodious pedal steel that sound like they’ve floated in on the breeze in a pure state. The song is a gently loving homage to someone he’s known since childhood as he recounts tales from growing up: “you were something in our day.” The connection is strong throughout years of self-discover.

On “Could’ve Been the Wine” there are piano runs and a shaker in this song of deep realizations and resolutions: “could’ve been the wine, could’ve been a memory, could’ve been a thousand things to catch your eye / what in the world’s come over me?” The guitar melodies are open and memorable. Lynn wrote this one while observing folks in an airport bar, but with the intimate feel it might well have been written for his best friend.

“Refinery Town” starts with a count off and plucked melodies, and it’s a heartland rock number with prominent fiddle, muscular harmonica, shaker, and the ominous feeling that you need to get out of an oil boom town. Or not. An ode to Port Arthur, Texas, this one considers the question: What if you don’t go as a kid, you don’t go to college, and you stay to raise a family? “It’s safe to bet now that I’ll never leave.” “Great Big World” tackles this topic again, from another angle: that of road tripping, and searching the great big world.

On the title track, “Autumn to August” we’re confronted with that sinking feeling we get when we note the passage of time, as the upbeat song chronicles another road traveler who needs to make amends. The bright guitar tones (a 12 string guitar?) are excellent as they create melodies out of up and down runs. “Same Old Shoes” addresses the passage of time, the mid numbing nature of the same old routing, and the pure joy in something special on a Saturday night: “polished and bright for Saturday night / if you could the years it doesn’t come out right / you spent a lifetime in the same old shoes.” The harmonica takes some melodies here with a shuffly beat and pedal steel and the result will have you tapping your toes and commiserating at the same time.

Lynn Crossett pens songs about longtime friendships, realizations that come on over time, and that nagging sensation that finding yourself isn’t about where you reside, or where you roam. They’re all brewed in a Texas style Americana.