Willie Watson

Since co-founding the much-acclaimed Old Crow Medicine Show, Willie Watson has spent around a quarter of a century as an interpreter of old-time American traditional music. Since leaving the band in 2011, he's made two solo albums, both titled simply Folk Singer and full of trad songs of the kind found on Harry Smith's seminal 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music. Now at 44, Watson's decided to turn singer-songwriter with a set of nine songs in this self-titled album, all but two of them from his own pen. He calls it his debut record, which does something of a disservice to his past work, for Watson brings all of the poise and timing he acquired as an interpreter of tradition to performing his own songs, which variously evoke comparison with Gordon Lightfoot, Ray LaMontagne and Josh Ritter. The standout on Willie Watson is the eight-and-a-half minute closer ‘Reap ’Em in the Valley’, a magnificent Woody Guthrie-styled autobiographical talking blues on which Watson engagingly recounts the highs and lows of his own creative journey.