FOR THE SAKE OF THE SONGS
Willie Watson starts folk revival by stripping away the past
Thus far, Willie Watson hasn’t struggled much coming up with titles for his albums.
In 2014, he put out “Folk Singer Vol. 1.” Last year came “Folk Singer Vol. 2.” They’re simply descriptive, for certain, and not much more than that. But those titles also serve the function of staying out of the way of the songs themselves, which is the point of it all. Since leaving the popular string band Old Crow Medicine Show, Watson has thrown himself into nearly a century of songs, looking for pieces that suit his high, haunting voice.
“It really just gets to the nature of what I’m doing, the heart and essence of what I’m doing,” he says. “Digging up songs and playing them. It becomes about what the performance makes you feel. Songs are just fantastic that way.”
Watson isn’t alone in interpreting old folk music, but at 38, he’s decidedly younger than the survivors from the ’60s folk revival. The passing of time gives him a particularly interesting connection to some of these songs. He’s essentially stripping layers of paint applied to them over the span of decades. Some listeners will know “Samson and Delilah” through the Grateful Dead or “Gallows Pole” via Led Zeppelin. The former can be traced back from Rev. Gary Davis to Blind Willie Johnson in the 1920s; the latter is considered a traditional song associated with Leadbelly. And while Watson’s “Gallows Pole” lacks the bombast of Zeppelin’s, his sparse and droning take on the song is far more effective at creating an unnerving mood. Other times, he looks further afield, as with “Lift Him Up and Never Knock Him Down,” by Blind Alfred Reed. Reed’s name may sound like that of a long-gone blues player, but in actuality, he was, Watson says, “a blind
Pentecostal, which served to make him severely Christian.”
Reed’s songs were documented in Bristol, Va., in 1927, around the same time that the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers made landmark recordings there. Despite being void of vision, Reed nevertheless held a crisp worldview, which explains the petty, yet damning “Why Do You Bob Your Hair, Girls?” (Please do yourself a favor and seek out this song.)
“He really liked long titles,” Watson says. “And the songs were pretty strict: Women shouldn’t cut their hair, and smoking cigarettes means you go to hell. It’s all kind of funny, but it also is interesting culturally. From those songs, you get a picture of society there and then, what the streets and stores look like. You can get that out of a song.
“A great song gives you a picture, and you get familiar with it. And the more you hear it, the more you realize these deeper details. It’s not just the bottle of corn whiskey and the horse with sleigh bells. There’s weight and depth in the best of these songs, and the stories are beautiful.”
The business of old music restoration is one fraught with complications. Decidedly retro music — be it honky-tonk or ’80s pop — often puts an emphasis on style over substance. But Watson’s approach reduces the music to its barest rudiments: words, voice, minimal music and occasionally some incidental noise. His voice cuts through such that the songs would possess great resonance if he banged them out on piano.
“That’s what I love about looking for songs and choosing songs,” he says. “To me, they’re not set in a time. I can understand and relate to the same things in a Blind Willie Johnson song that I do a Bob Dylan song from the ’70s. I just want there to be a believability in the music that comes through. With a lot of pop and modern music, I just don’t believe what they’re saying. And it’s not just pop. Even a lot of what we call ‘Americana’ is that way, too. I’d rather listen to Taylor Swift singing about an ex-boyfriend, because that feels more truthful. There are people writing and recording honky-tonk songs who haven’t ever been to a honky-tonk. So I try to make these songs seem real and truthful.”
Watson’s magnetic north, not surprisingly, is Leadbelly, the Louisiana native born Huddie Ledbetter, whose work is frequently filed alongside blues singers. But Leadbelly’s elemental body of work extended well beyond that genre.
“I tried to not put any Leadbelly songs on this record,” Watson says. “But, well, I just can’t stay away from him. His songs are so exciting, and I think they’re well-suited to my voice. Not to say I sing like Leadbelly, but I’m able to sing in a similar place. His songs move me, and the way he plays moves me.”
Watson passes through Houston Thursday for a show at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck. When his touring cycle completes, he’ll start thinking about a third volume of “Folk Singer” recordings. Even though they come along every three years or so, the recordings are almost unattached to time.
Watson says some of the songs that appear on his albums are tunes he tried to work up with Old Crow before his departure in 2011.
“It’s funny how songs work,” he says. “Some songs I’ll work on 20 years. Some you learn that day and they’re easy to play at shows. Others you have to grease up. Sometimes you’ve known them for years. Sometimes you need to dig. You gotta have something to do, so I’ll just go for a drive and play songs or sit and play records all day.
“Sometimes my job is to just sit and listen to records.”