Willie Watson
Album: Folk Singer Volume 1
Label: Acony
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.williewatson.com

This is the debut solo album from the guy with the high lonesome voice who departed the ranks of Old Crow Medicine Show around four or five years ago; finally he gets the chance to express himself and give his unique takes on song in an unadorned context.

The disc delivers a succession of powerful covers of country-folk-Americana-songbook standards - not an overtly promising tracklist, admittedly, for you'll be saying "who needs yet another version of Midnight Special, Stewball, Long John Dean, Rock Salt And Nails etc?"… but these new takes way more than pass muster, largely due to Willie's distinctive vocal styling and his intensely felt banjo and guitar accompaniment. And tucked in amongst the too-well-known titles we find obscure gems like Kitty Puss, a song by early-20s banjo player Land Norris.

In a way, this whole album comes over like an LP from around half a century ago: a straightforward, simple, barest-bones, almost primitive product with an authentic real-deal atmosphere, its uncluttered production taking on board the nature and essence of the solo performer and just letting the tape roll.

We don't know much about Willie, beyond the basics: born in Watkins Glen, NY, he had his musical epiphany with a Leadbelly record at age 12, and fused this experience with exposure to old-time singers and musicians through Harry Smith's Anthology and folks like Neil Young and Bob Dylan from his dad's record collection. It's indicative that David Rawlings, who's produced this album, takes the view that "Willie is the only one of his generation who can make me forget these songs were ever sung before", and listening to these determinedly centre-stage renditions it's easy to punch the air and agree with David at once, for Willie sure inhabits the songs personally - as he himself says: "I try to take songs I can relate to and that I can sing with urgency, that I can feel".

Straight down the line, but pretty compelling, Willie's performances fill out the space between the lines of the lyrics with continuance of emotion, and it's obvious from his own liner notes that he really does understand his chosen material while also humbly taking on board interpretive quirks and angles drawn from his original sources and earlier cover versions alike. Yeah Willie, we dig! - so let's hope Volume 2 ain't long in comin', then!

David Kidman