Music has always come fairly easily to Bobby Charles; it’s the business part that has been hard. He’s had a gift for a melody and lyrics written in the common tongue since he wrote “See You Later Alligator” and “Walking to New Orleans,” but label owners, managers, and even other musicians have taken some of the fun out of music for him. The songs still come, though, whether he wants them or not, and periodically he calls friends—often Sonny Landreth—and schedules a session, often at Dockside Studio. The aptly named Homemade Songs collects some of those sessions.

The title track is the gem, a country soul ballad cut in Nashville. Mickey Raphael’s harmonica echoes the loneliness in Charles’ voice when he sings, “You ask me if I think I’ll ever make it back down home. / I doubt it because I know I don’t belong. / I think I’m going to stay right here / because here is where I belong. / Staying stoned and singing homemade songs.”

In general, the Nashville tracks are the strongest here, but “Pick of the Litter” is the sort of pop song Charles has made his calling card—seemingly artless, seemingly effortless, but with everything in the exactly right place and memorable. It’s grounded day to day life, but it makes that life seem a little less mundane.

In its way, Homemade Songs is more of a portrait of Charles than many albums that set out to document the complex person behind them. At times, he’s sentimental, revisiting older songs; at times, he’s pissed off at politicians. He’s reflective in one song, then singing the Battle Hymn of the Football Fan in the next. The album is unified, though, by the sensibility of someone who’s seen enough and done enough to know the value of doing things your way on your time.