The Maverick

WHEN IT comes to high-octane honky-tonk, Dale Watson is the real deal. A latter day country outlaw dripping with authenticity, the Texas based self-proclaimed hardcore troubadour has been on a mission to save country music ever since he released his first album, Cheatin Heart Attack back in 1995. Touring non-stop with his band the Lone Stars, Watson brings his timeless honky-tonk to beer joints and road houses across America and, increasingly, around the world. Not surprisingly, given his stance, he harbours nothing but contempt for the Nashville establishment.
CMA? he mocks. Country My Ass, that s what it means to me. There s no realism in country music these days. It doesn t make you think anymore, everything s gotta be glamorised and airbrushed over. Radio has been totally taken over by the mainstream. You can t even sing about having a beer in a bar and if you do you can t be getting drunk you can have one, or maybe two!
With his rough n ready good looks Watson could pass for James Dean s slightly older brother or even a younger Joe Strummer. He pretty much lives the life he sings about: he drives a battered pick up truck complete with original 8-track cartridge machine (ask your parents if you re under 30!), and his youngest daughter is named Dalynn Cash Watson after Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash.
Born in Birmingham Alabama, the son of a truck-driving, part-time musician Watson grew up steeped in music and was fronting a band with his brothers by the time he was 18. Sojourns to LA and Nashville focused his musical direction mainly confirming to him what he didn t like. By the time he arrived in Austin, Texas in the mid- 90s he had honed his brand of rootsy country/Americana into a formidable sound.
Watson s hard driving songs echo with the sound of his heroes Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens and Conway Twitty. And while he admits to being heavily influenced by these and others he is anxious to point out that his sound is anything but retro-minded.
It s a natural progression of what went before, he says. It s what country music would have sounded like today had it not been polluted by all that candy ass stuff in the 1980s and 1990s.
Watson s latest collection, People I ve Known, Places I ve Seen, chronicles the never ending trail of losers, boozers and broken hearts he encounters on the road. Songs like Louie Lee s Liquor Lounge , Rattlesnake Train and Johnny At The Door could ve been recorded 35 years ago, such is their timeless appeal.
Watson is quite fussy about the kind of venue he plays, avoiding at all costs the plastic country joints that have prospered in recent years.
We only play hardcore honky-tonks and rock and roll venues, he states bluntly. My agent has put a bold thick line in my contract to make sure we don t play in any boot-scooting [Line Dancing] joints. Any place that wants Brooks and Dunne or Faith Hill I don t want to be a part of.
Recently signed to Seymour Stein s Sire label Watson may be poised for bigger things in the near future. But until then he has vowed to keep on playing the way he always plays.
I m not out there looking for hits or anything like that. It s all such a corporate thing. If it doesn t happen we ll go the way bluegrass went a few years ago. When that quit being played on the radio and in the venues they created their own festivals and it started taking off again.
Dale Watson plays HQ at the Irish Music Hall of Fame on Wednesday March 1st. His album People I ve Known, Places I ve Seen is released on CRS Records.