Willie Watson

Before Willie Watson turned 18, he met God in an apple orchard. Or, at the very least, he met Ruby Love, who had an enormous Martin guitar and a deep understanding of American folk songs. Watson, a high-school dropout from upstate New York, was on his way to his first heartbreak and playing in a band that didn’t take itself seriously. At a graduation party in that magical orchard that night, Watson and Love sang together—“Worried Man Blues” and “Tennessee Waltz.” This was the first time Watson cried while singing, realizing music could make sense of his life. That night became a foundational moment for Watson, who now calls it a duet with the divine. Within months of that 1997 encounter, he met the musicians with whom he would form Old Crow Medicine Show.

Now 44, heartbreak and hurt, backlit by the corona of hope that only growth can provide, have led him to sobriety and self-reflection. The eponymous “Willie Watson” is his first-ever true album, having finally lived and lost and simply witnessed enough to know he has something to sing with his exquisite rural tenor. Watson has not abandoned the old songs entirely. He dazzles during a robust take on the forever-curious “Mole in the Ground” and treats “Harris and the Mare,” the Stan Rogers standard, with total tenderness. But by and large, these are his stories. No longer just a folk interpreter, Watson emerges as a bona fide songwriter, adding new entries to the folk lexicon with his own burdens and insights.

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