Pure Country

[Colt1861Navy]

Just Country: Watson so country he's 'alternative'

SA Express-News

08/02/2002

Dale Watson doesn't mess around when he plays country music.
His style is so country that many consider it alternative country, even though it's not that different than many of his heroes — Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and George Jones, to name a few.

"It's very odd," Watson said while waiting for a plane in Boston after a gig at the National Folk Festival.

"We play a lot of rock 'n' roll venues in the States. The country rooms I do play aren't country rooms at all. They're discotheques, really, with cowboy hats and boots. So I'm glad to play rock rooms and be considered alternative rock because country today isn't country."

Instead of a rock or country hall, on Wednesday, Dale Watson and His Lonestars will play a restaurant — at the County Line/KJ97 Live Music Series at 8 p.m., with admission just a donation to the San Antonio Food Bank.

But it's not his first show at a restaurant.

He's even recorded at one, "Live in London ... England" (Audium), released in June, in the cellar of The Borderline.

"It's very small but it always takes on the atmosphere and the passion of the people in it, and luckily that's exactly what we got on the record."

Also on the album are 21 cuts of unapologetically hard-core country, dished up with Watson's bold approach with steel and twang guitars and served with his inspired and muscular vocals.

It includes such "alt-country" covers as Jimmie Rodgers' "In the Jailhouse Now," Cash's "I Got Stripes" and Haggard's "Mama's Hungry Eyes."

The seventh album in seven years from the prolific Austin songwriter includes 10 songs not recorded on U.S. CDs, including several that get across his attitude succinctly — "Nashville Rash" and "Country My Ass."

Watson, who has quite a following in Europe, returned from a short tour in France last week.

"In Europe, they know more about country music, even the roots of it, than a lot of Americans, oddly enough," he said. "It's kind of scary when you lose sight of your own roots and traditions and you have to be told by foreigners."

Life's a song

Like some others, Tracie Lynn laid low after Sept. 11. The Austin singer and songwriter took a step back to re-evaluate her life.

"But God sent me messages," she said. "My life's about singing."

To that end, she's gearing up more gigs across the state and the San Antonio area, including tonight at the Leon Springs Dance Hall, her first stop there in many years.

This week, she met with a banker to explore options for financing her third album, which she hopes to begin working on soon. It will follow "Girl Talk," her critically acclaimed 1999 independent release, which takes the best of traditional and contemporary country and blends it with Lynn's expressive vocals.

"It's taken so long because I want to make sure it gets the attention it needs," Lynn said. "I want to have the right songs and the right producer, and I'll probably try for Lloyd Maines again."

During the stretch between the second and third albums, Lynn has re-released her first, which had sold out.

"People kept asking for another album, and I didn't want to release 'Is Anybody Listening' again because — well, promise to remember this is my first album — because it kind of sucks."

That is her way of saying she has progressed as a songwriter and knows her work continues to improve. After all, no one has asked for money back.

"Looking back, it's pretty good for a first album," she said. "Some of these songs were the first songs I had written, back in 1990 or 1991. The songwriting's a little young."

But some have stood the test of time, such as "The Silence," a powerful breakup song about the saddest sound, and the bouncy cheater "I Know You're Lying (Cuz Your Lips Are Moving)."

"The next album is going to be called 'Leave a Trail,' after one of the songs," she said. "It's ready to go, and so am I."

Album for Mata

If there's a little extra bounce in the Western swing of Billy Mata & The Texas Tradition Saturday night at Leon Springs Dance Hall, there's a good reason.

Mata is excited about a new project — his third album.

All the contracts are not yet signed, but Mata is going to record an album of new songs from Clyde Pitts, who wrote the Ray Price hit "Sweetheart of the Year."

Tommy Allsup, the legendary producer and Grammy-winning Western swing artist with the Texas Playboys, will produce the album, Mata said.

"I'm really looking forward to this," said Mata, the Academy of Western Artists' Western swing male vocalist in 2000. "I've been hovering for a couple of years without a new product, and the expectations are high for this one.

"The kind of material and style definitely will be traditional like Western swing and Texas shuffles. There'll be no compromising stuff to try to please somebody in Nashville — make them come to us."

Quick picks

Hit by a flood on Independence Day, Luckenbach finally will celebrate its Fourth of July Picnic on Sunday. The free party begins at noon with Maggie Montgomery singing "The Star Spangled Banner" and follows with Beth Williams, Magnolia Thunderblossom and The Luckenbach Irregulars, Geronimo Treviño III, Jimmy Lee Jones and The Cosmic Dust Devils. Call [phone] or visit www.luckenbachtexas.com.

Willie Nelson and Family are pitching in to help raise money for flood victims with a concert Monday at Gruene Hall. Doors open at 6 p.m. Ray Wylie Hubbard, Charlie Robison and Cory Morrow will open with a song swap from 7:45 to 9 p.m. The $100 ticket aids New Braunfels Rebounds, a disaster relief group formed after the flood of 1998. Call [phone] or visit www.gruenehall.com.

Jody Jenkins and his father, Bobby, do a little hunting and singing on "The Chevy Sportsman With Alan Warren." The nationwide program airs at 6:30 a.m. Sunday on KENS and on a variety of cable channels through Sunday.

"We went on a hunt on a ranch near Junction," Jody Jenkins said. "It spotlights the outdoors, good friends and a father-son type of thing."

Just released to radio across the Southwest is Jenkins' "Falling in Love With You," a country shuffle off his latest album, "Under a Texas Moon."

Houston Marchman & The Contraband will be bringing what he calls "grunge country" to Gruene Hall tonight.

"I like to rock on certain songs — you know, break strings," said Marchman, who lives in Bastrop. "But then there's certain songs you want to fingerpick."

Marchman kicks off his shows fast before slowing down with some more acoustic, songwriter stuff, but it all pulls from that Texas melting pot of country, rock, Tejano, Cajun and more.

"In our genre, that's been the history," he said. "The Germans brought the accordion to Tejano or conjunto, so it's just a big melding here with Cajun, swing, folk, and it all kind of comes together to me."

Next up at Gruene Hall is the roots country/rockabilly of Two Tons of Steel on Saturday. They're continuing their popular Two Ton Tuesdays through August.

If you're looking for a ticket to the Pat Green show at the River Road Ice House on Saturday night, you're going to have to look hard — it's sold out.

John M. Greenberg of Kings- land, who plays a blend of country/folk/rock/Latin and whatever along with thoughtful lyrics, doesn't play this area much, but he'll be at Armadillo on the Creek in Comfort from 5 to 8 p.m. Sunday. Greenberg, or Johnny Gringo as he is known to fans and friends, founded an acoustic group called The Panhandlers in the mid-1990s and went on his own a couple of years later. The Armadillo, the old Comfort Turn Verein Bowling Alley, also serves up food and drink along with Texas Music every Sunday at the corner of Sixth and Water streets. For more information, call [phone] or visit www.pickinontheporch.com.




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