No sad song on a jukebox can
match the recent real life heartache of honky
tonk rebel Dale Watson.
On the night of September 15, 2000, Terri
Herbert fell asleep at the wheel on her way to
Houston to meet Watson, her fiancée. She died
at the scene of one-car accident.
On
December 28, a despondent Watson took a
potentially lethal combination of alcohol and
pills in an Austin area hotel room. After being
discovered by his road manager, Watson committed
himself to a state hospital. A few days into the
New Year, Watson was released- and returned to
writing songs as a way of coming to grips with
the tragedy.
One of the most unusual
albums in country music history- one man singing
about one woman- Every Song I Write Is For You (Audium),
released July 24, 2001, is Watson’s very
personal testament to, he says, “the power of
love when it’s in bloom and when it’s lost,
the highest highs and the lowest lows. I hope
these songs touch the hearts of those who’ve
known love, and that those who’ve loved and
lost realize they’re not alone. Yes, it’s a
love song album with no apologies.”
Critically acclaimed ever
since he emerged in the early ‘90s as a
shining light of Americana and alt-country, the
singer-songwriter-guitarist once again bucks the
pop country trend, this time with an album of
songs written because they had to be. “The
songs flooded in,” says Watson, “and I wasn’t
even thinking about putting them out. These are
the best songs I’ve ever written but I
recorded them for me.” The response to copies
sold to raise money for the Terri Herbert
Foundation, which awards college scholarships to
high school students from single parent homes,
changed his mind. “ I realized it could help
me help other people. I never think about
whether it’s commercial or not. I just go with
what feels right – and this album is the most
important album I’ve ever done.
That’s why when Watson signed to Audium he
requested that Every Song I Write Is For You be
released before Christmas Time in Texas and Live
From London later this year. (A new studio album
is also in the works.) “Audium is ballsy to do
this. Some people said, “This is too
depressing.”
Well, some of it is sad—‘I’m So Lonesome I
Could Cry” is a sad song too—but there’s
also perspective and happiness about what we did
have together. We’ll see if radio’s too
scared to provoke any real emotion because there’s
nothing more real than this.”
Watson has
just come out of a divorce and was hardly
looking for another relationship when he met
Terri. ‘It was amazing and we got serious real
quick, “he says. After he recorded the
Christmas album at Sun studios in Nashville, he
went on a summer tour of Europe—where he is
revered—and taped the live album. Terri then
joined him in Spain for a vacation, during which
they talked about marriage. They were together
for just four months when she died.
Watson
was devastated and began writing down his
feelings in songs, a dozen or so pouring out
almost immediately. “It was tough singing them
though,” he says. “More often than not I had
to stop and start over because I couldn’t get
through it.” In effect, he was suffering from
Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. “I was a
record with the needle stuck in the groove.
Every day I heard for the fist time Terri had
been killed, with that same intensity, reliving
it over and over. I wasn’t getting any sleep,
and sleep is your mind’s way of coping, so I
kinda went crazy. I tried to kill myself and
ended up in the nuthouse.”
He
underwent a treatment called REMDI, which synchs
up the left and right sides of the brain, within
a week was learning to cope. “You can pretty
much pick out which songs I wrote before and
which after,” he says. “Learned to
appreciate what we had together instead of just
mourning.” Now Watson is back to performing
his usual 250 shows a year and his voice on
Every Song I Write Is For You remains as pure,
deep and strong as any in country.
Watson’s
musical family hailed from Kentucky and North
Carolina, and he was born in Alabama. His Uncle
Jim played guitar with Merle Travis and his
father Don was a truck-driving singer-guitarist.
Dale had his first music lessons from his
brother Jim and began writing songs when he was
12, recording his first when he was only 14. He
then moved with his family to Pasadena, just
outside Houston, and was soon performing at
local clubs and honky tonks, including world
famous Gilley’s.
In
1988, seeking to be closer to the Bakersfield
sound of inspirations Buck Owens and Merle
Haggard, and encouraged by singer-songwriter
Rosie Flores, he relocated to Los Angeles.
Landing a gig at the Palomino Club playing
guitar in the house band, he witnessed the rise
of alt-country, with the likes of Dwight Yoakam
appealing to a very different generation. In
1990, he recorded the singles “One Tear At A
Time” and “You Poor It On And I Poor It
Down,” and two years later was heard on Volume
3 of the L.A. country compilation A Town South
Of Bakersfield. He also had a small role in The
Thing Called Love, a 1993 film about love and
life in Music City starring River Phoenix,
Samantha Mathis, and Sandra Bullock. But the
combination of earthquakes and the equally
disastrous rise of line dancing prompted Watson
to move first to Nashville (as a staff writer
for Gary Morris Music) and then to Austin. In
1994, he was about to give up on real country,
enrolling in community college to learn
motorcycle repair, when a European label called
wanting him to record an album. He then struck a
deal with HighTone for the U.S.
His
debut, Cheatin’ Heart Attack (1995),
established him in the front ranks of the
Austin honky tonk set. The similarly acclaimed
Blessed Or Damned (1996) and I Hate These Songs
(1997) followed. So too did a two-year-long
truck stop tour that resulted in The Truckin’
Sessions (1998) on another label. In fact, it
has been his fame in Europe, not unlike that of
another idiosyncratic crooner, Don Williams,
which has sustained his recording career. Other
albums released only in Europe, such as People I’ve
known, places I’ve seen (1999) from Dale
Watson And His Lone Stars, and From the Start !
(2000), a collection of recordings from
1989-1992, have been heartily received there.
“Here they call me ‘too
country’. But country has done nothing short
of lose it’s identity. Its roots are firmly
planted in mid-air. In Europe, radio isn’t
shoving something down their throats. In
America, I play rock ‘n’ roll rooms to the
dyed hair and pierced nose crowd instead of
country rooms for the boot-scootin’ crowd. My
audience makes up its own mind and doesn’t
want to be told what to like.”
Watson is a
honky tonker at a time when there are few honky
tonks. “Country music now is all snappy, poppy
and everything’s great. There’s no ‘The
Bottle Let Me Down’ or ‘He Stopped Loving
Her Today’ that a blue-collar guy can play on
the jukebox late at night. But I’m not kickin’
up a fuss about it like I used to. You can only
scream so long before you get hoarse. I just do
what I do and hope for the best. Maybe I’m
mellowing.”
Every Song
That I Write Is For You is another step on a
journey that has seen highest of highs and
lowest of lows for Dale Watson. “Maybe the
next one will be an album of songs about love
gone right,” he says. “Nobody knows. That’s
the beauty of always doing what’s true to
yourself.”
Please
visit Dale Watson's Official Website www.dalewatson.com
