In that particular regard, it reminds me a little of Pete Seeger’s “American Favorite Ballads” series, and I look forward to volume two.
With this album, Watson is carrying on the proud tradition of old folk classics. These are songs that need to be kept alive, and a lot more folks – especially young folks – listen to new albums than old ones. Nothing on the album is particularly innovative or new, but that’s okay. There’s a great rendition of “James Alley Blues” as well as “Mother Earth” and “Keep It Clean.” On Mother Earth, it’s Watson’s blues guitar that lifts the song as much as it is his voice, helping round out the album’s sound. Certainly what acoustic blues should be.Īnd to that effect, it’s worth noting that this is almost as much a blues album as it is a folk album. Watson is now center-stage, armed with an acoustic guitar, banjo and the occasional mouth harp.” It’s all very simple, music a lone person could recreate on a lonely porch – pretty much what folk, at least when it’s solo, should be. It’s all more than enough to compensate for any personal distaste I may have – a particularly impressive feat since, as the liner notes note, it’s “a true solo album in every sense.
KEEP IT CLEAN WILLIE WATSON HOW TO
Watson knows how to find the true spirit of these songs – and I have to admit that that high, old-timey reach I usually dislike is particularly helpful when wailing on a tune like “Mexican Cowboy.” When he opens his mouth and sings, you feel like you’re hearing what’s actually inside the man coming out, nothing left to show. I have to admit, I don’t personally care for that combination of both high AND nasally, which is what grabbed me on the first listen – but I really respect this work, and I applaud Watson for the album. The album is extrem ely sparse, and Watson’s voice is every bit as distinctive – and almost as old-timey (in a very different way) – as Pokey LaFarge’s. I’ve listened to the album five times, and though I didn’t like it the first time, I’ve liked it every single time since. All ten of the songs are classic folk or blues tunes – none original – and many are not particularly well known.
1” and recorded at David Rawlings and Gillian Welch’s Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville. With an encore of “John Henry,” he and the band delivered a performance that confirmed why so many other artists under the big tent of Americana choose to share a stage with Willie Watson.Willie Watson, a founding member of Old Crow Medicine Show, released his first solo album on May 6, entitled “Folk Singer, Vol. Noting that he had married a few months ago, Watson sang a song he wrote for his wife, “The Only Real Love That I Have Ever Known.” Willie Watson at Station Inn With his usual effervescent demeanor, Watson entertained the audience with some best-loved songs from his catalog, including “Take This Hammer” and “Keep It Clean.” He also performed songs from the folk tradition he has preserved on several recording projects, including “Ain’t Got No Mama Now,” a song he called “new to the band” drawn from Blind Lemon Jefferson, as well as an original song called “Slim and the Devil,” which he adapted from a poem he found in a collection of works by Black poets from 1865-1965. Watson, one of the original members of Old Crow Medicine Show, frequently appearing with the Dave Rawlings Band and other Americana troubadours, played a set with his new band: Ben Gould, who played in a band with Watson before the Old Crow days, on double bass Sam Schmidt on guitar and mandolin and Rosie Newton on fiddle. Under the Americana banner of folk music, Willie Watson appeared at Music City’s historic Station Inn on Thursday of the AmericanaFest.
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