Country music is one of the most maligned genres around these days as a lot of people, myself included, can't resist taking shots at it. Of course with the big hair, the rhinestone suits, and too many songs about pick-up trucks and the girl running away with the dog and getting killed by a run away train, it kind of leaves itself open to it. The problem is that because of those factors there's a tendency to forget some really important information and ignore some really great talent.
One of the things that most of us forget about is that people like Bob Dylan owe as much to country music as they do to anything else for shaping the direction their music went in. Bob's great idol, Woody Guthrie, might have sung songs about Dust Bowl survivors and building strong unions, but his musical roots were firmly in the hills of Oklahoma. Country music originated with the descendants of Irish and Scottish settlers singing their versions of traditional folk songs of the British Isles, and grew from there. It was only in the '60s, with the commercialization of folk music, that country was relegated to a second-class citizenship.
However the really good country musicians like Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Jeff Walker never lost sight of their origins and kept singing and writing music that was firmly rooted in the communities they came from. Now while the big hair set still get most of the publicity, some of today's performers haven't completely forgotten where they came from. Listening to Dale Watson's most recent release on Hyena Records, From The Cradle To The Grave, reminds you that country music, in the hands of the right person, can be every bit as real as any other music.
Of the 10 songs on From The Cradle To The Grave only one, "It's Not Over Now" clocks in at over three minutes in length. When I popped the disc into my CD player and the read out said 10 songs in under 30 minutes I was really taken aback. In these days of digital music it's rare for a new release to have under 40 minutes of music what with discs now being able to hold over an hour's worth of information. Yet once you start listening to Dale you are so taken up in the songs and his delivery that considerations like that become irrelevant. He's able to accomplish in under three minutes what very few people can in twice the time.
First of all he doesn't fool around with his lyrics; they are direct and to the point without being simplistic or trivial. He has an amazing ability to communicate complex thoughts and ideas with a very few words, while still managing to maintain a certain poetic elegance. The first song on the disc, "Justice For All," is a great example of this as it presents both sides of the capital punishment argument succinctly and fairly.
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