Originally appeared on Dale Watson's website, October 2001.
Dale Watson’s music is like a coming home. When you listen to Dale sing, it’s like returning to your childhood home when you can’t, really, in real life because your house has been torn down to make room for another Walmart, and the salvage men have carted away all the lumber. It’s like going back to a home where you’re normally not welcome since you were disowned over all the letdowns and disappointments your folks suffered on your account -- but, when you listen to Dale sing, it’s like walking in a dream where you’re received by loving, open arms like some Prodigal Son or Daughter, and all is magically forgiven.
If Dale Watson were a movie star from the ‘Fifties, he’d be Montgomery Clift. There’s something tragically romantic in his handsome face, a shadow of torment and pain and heartbreak endured and of a great love lost forever. Dale’s hair, once probably as "black as the color of your true love’s hair," in that old Appalachian folksong, is now threaded with silver and his eyes are light, light blue, transparent as tears. Like Monty Clift, there’s something about Dale’s delicate build that seems fragile, like some melancholy, cracked-up rodeo rider who has to stay on that bucking bull despite being wracked with pain because this night might finally be the night when he takes home the purse. If Wuthering Heights were to be retold in modern times and to take as its setting the Great Plains of Texas instead of the moors of England, Dale would be its Heathcliff; there’s something almost gothic about him. Like Johnny Cash, he’s the lean, mysterious cowboy dressed in black. He’s cool as Hud, but unlike Hud, Dale seems a little sad and he’s not at all mean-spirited. It strikes you that he’d be likely to carry a yellowed, faded memento of his lost love folded up in some secret place in his wallet. His voice, deep and smooth as early Elvis’s, resonates, sometimes, with what sounds like pangs of regret. Dale reminds you of a lone motorcylist in battered black leathers, rumbling through town, flashing tailpipes, stopping just long enough to throw down a cup of coffee at some greasy spoon café but long enough to play one tune on the juke box and break some waitress’ heart.
Dale’s trucking music evokes the perfume of diesel exhaust and oil refineries and the rhythm of the wheels of big rigs (going somewhere anywhere! -- except your own small hometown) glimpsed from the back seat of the family car when you were a child. Never derivative, Dale’s original songs are always evocative. Like all good country songs, they seem to be a compassionate and timeless soundtrack for lives where good lovin’ and good women frequently go bad, people try to wash away their sins with hard drinking, underage sweethearts cross State lines to enter into hasty and ill-advised unions, God sends righteous tornadoes to flatten entire trailer parks, and someone’s always considering escaping for good by heading off down an Interstate highway. His sound is authentic and it’s clear he’s done his homework. Dale’s music must surely summon up the ghosts of departed country luminaries, and they surely look down from heaven, lift a glass to him and smile.
Dale and his Lone Stars are not about image; they are all consummately skilled musicians and as hard-working and dependable as the mechanic your father counted on to fix the engine when he finally had to admit he couldn’t. In an average week, Dale and his band easily work more hours making music than most of us fans put in at our jobs. And, even with all that playing, Dale and the band remain modest, gracious and accessible to their audiences. Dale makes it clear there is no shame at all in being from Texas, and makes you glad you decided to come out to listen, and, maybe, to dance.
It’s only a matter of time until a whole new generation of tattooed biker-boys and their hep kittens become fans. Dale’s music will take them to a different time and to places they are too young to remember (and which, truly, don’t even exist anymore). And for those of us who are old enough to remember, it will continue to evoke memories of our childhoods and our wild, beautiful, mis-spent youths. Dale Watson’s music is just the thing for those of us who long ago lost our Faith; it’s like getting one last chance for a final conversation with an elderly, departed loved one about the old days of the original Texas honky-tonks. Dale’s music makes it easy for you take that leap of faith and believe in the goodness of a simple invitation to two-step.
As sidewalk cafés are to Paris, so are Dale Watson and the Lone Stars to Austin. His music creates an atmosphere that is authentic Texas culture, filled with all its love of fun, orneriness, hospitality, tough breaks, hard lived lives, and working for a living. Dale Watson is authentic country not like most of those manufactured country-western singers whose CD’s you can buy right down the road at your local Walmart, filed next to this week’s disposable bands of teenage heartthrobs. Dale is the real deal, and his music will last. It’s only a matter of time before he takes his place among the country music royalty from whom he’s learned his lessons well, and from whom his bloodline clearly descends. Until then, I’ll be occupying a stool in Austin, Texas, feeling happy to be alive because I’m once again fortunate enough to be listening to Dale Watson’s music live, and I’ll be feeling somehow redeemed.
