By Rege Behe, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Dale Watson and his band spend hundreds of hours on the road every year. They criss-cross Texas (Watson lives in Austin), meander through the Midwest, make stops in Northern California, Maine and various points in between.
But he says that's nothing compared to his fellow travelers on the highways and byways of the continent -- long-haul truckers.
"It's a lot easier to travel down the road when you have five other guys in the band with you." says Watson, who appears Wednesday at the Thunderbird Cafe, Lawrenceville.
Watson's milieu is country music, but not the kind that's heard on contemporary radio. His roots are in the '60s and '70s, and his most recent album, "The Truckin' Sessions: Vol. 2," weds his passion for that music with songs about the peripatetic men and women who spend their lives driving the big rigs from coast to coast.
"It's definitely about places we've been," Watson says of the release, noting that he and his bandmates have dined and showered at truck stops. "We carry a CB radio as well. We stay in touch."
One song, "Yankee Doodle Jean," came by way of a conversation over the CB band with a female truck driver. "Let This Trucker Go" is a lament for a friend whose father drove a truck. Other songs, notably "I Got to Drive," speak of the inexorable pull of the road.
Watson recorded the album "with very few overdubs as possible," he says. "Obviously, I did this with my band, and I had to overdub my acoustic guitar, but I wanted it as close to live as possible. ... All the vocals are live vocals; those vocals tracks are the ones we sang in the studio."
The result is an album that roars out of the speakers with a rare authenticity. While it's hard to quantify what is authentic or not -- Watson quotes George Jones saying "I know country music when I hear it" -- he does admit his music is not made to fit a certain demographic or pay hollow homage to his influences.
"I hear a lot of folks from Nashville saying they were influenced by Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings," he says. "But you don't hear that influence. You don't hear the Buck Owens or Bob Wills they say they listen to; it sounds more like they listen to KISS. I have no problem with that, but be real about who your influences are."
While traveling is in his blood, and many of Watson's ideas are culled from the viewpoint of his tour bus, he's not a constant wanderer. As much as he enjoys touring, it's always a relief when he returns to Austin.
"I love being home when I'm home," he says. "But what makes home so much sweeter is, you miss it more when you don't have it as often."
