Willie Watson
Anyone not acquainted with folk troubadour Willie Watson’s nearly two-decade-long career need look no further than the just-released video for “Gallows Pole,” from his new full-length Folksinger Volume 2, for a tutorial in how adeptly he introduces Appalachian gospel and Celtic-tinged blues to the 21st Century. Opening with Watson in silhouette looking out over a bushy hill, strumming guitar and blowing his Dylan-style harp holder, he’s accompanied by a four-piece woodwind orchestra seated amid the dried-out weeds nearby, with the entire four-minute clip unfolding in what appears as one long, roaming shot (tricked out with a few cleverly disguised transitions).
Watson just launched a lengthy tour that wraps up in San Diego next year on February 22 at the Casbah, where he hopefully won’t be tired of playing the new album’s array of Americana covers made famous by Leadbelly, Reverend Gary Davis, and more. Recorded on analog tape in Nashville, Folksinger Volume 2 comes three years after Volume 1, which was his first release after quitting Old Crow Medicine Show in 2011. Watson also plays with the Dave Rawlings Machine and is about to make his acting debut in Netflix’s Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a Coen brothers production.