With a name like Willie Watson, you could be mistaken for thinking he is a tricky winger who plays for the Scottish national football team. But the guy stood in the centre of the stage tonight is no such thing. He is, in fact, a highly revered American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actor, and founding member of Old Crow Medicine Show. He was with this Nashville-based Americana string band from their onset in 1998 until 2011 when he left to pursue a solo career.
Three albums later he is now back here in Leeds in support of the most recent of these records, last year’s self-titled release which, given that the first two were comprised entirely of cover versions of old songs, has been referred to as his “first fully original solo album.”
The last time I saw Willie Watson in concert was at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds, almost exactly six years ago to the day. His “absolutely stunning performance” that night drew heavily on those first two records, Folk Singer Vol. 1 (2014) and Folk Singer Vol. 2 (2017). And as this carefully weighted and quite beautifully delivered set unfolds that brace of albums is once again represented, but this time by only three of its traditional tunes, ‘Mexican Cowboy,’ ‘Gallows Pole’ – most familiar to many, perhaps, from Led Zeppelin III – and Watson’s second and final encore of the evening, ‘John Henry.’
The bulk of tonight’s set instead comes from the new record. Bar his excellent cover of Canadian singer Stan Rogers’ ‘Harris and the Mare,’ Willie Watson plays it in its entirety, including his half dozen self-penned tunes. It has been said that this is the album on which “Watson finds his own voice.” I am not sure he ever lost that expressive high tenor, which is key to all of his songs, but on Willie Watson he certainly shows himself to be a mighty fine songwriter as evidenced here by the opening pairing of ‘Already Gone’ and ‘Sad Song.’ Here he reflects upon the vicissitudes of his past life before ending the set proper with the beautiful ‘Real Love’ which he wrote for his wife.
In between these staging posts he “cut out the guitar part and missed out two verses” on Blind Lemon Jefferson’s ‘Black Snake Moan’ as “I didn’t think I was playing it good.” It sounded pretty damn fine to everyone else in the room, but such are the standards that Watson sets for himself. ‘Slim and the Devil,’ where he adapts the Sterling A. Brown poem, ‘Slim Greer in Hell’ and blows a pretty mean harmonica is an absolute gem.
Willie Watson seems to be almost embarrassed by the fact that the word actor now appears on his CV but he did, after all, appear in the 2018 Coen brothers’ movie The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and illustrates the fact by making his first encore ‘When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings.’ Written by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Watson performed the song with Tim Blake Nelson for that superb motion picture. The ensuing ‘John Henry’ brings to a quite wonderful close what is a quite wonderful show.
At the Howard Assembly Room six years ago, support on the night came courtesy of The Harmaleighs, the charming Nashville duo of Haley Grant and Kaylee Jasperson. Tonight’s opening act, 23-year-old Blessing Jolie hails from Houston, Texas and equally impresses with her confidence, powerful voice, and a clutch of great songs which are destined for her debut album due to be released later this year.
Photos: Simon Godley
Some more photos of Willie Watson and Blessing Jolie at The Old Woollen.
