Cool steel and trucker's favourites

Words Mike Plumbley · Pictures: Dave Knowles

The 'c' word conjures up all kinds of connotations. English folkies have been known to put fingers in both of their ears. Too often here the 'c' word for country is pigeonholed as either Kenny Rogers or some rootin', bootin', scootin' line dancing schmuck.

In reality the 'c' word for country is all things to all men (sorry persons). One man's meat is another's sheep in a box (Damien Hirst, touch of art culture here). For sure Dale Watson's country ain't the same as Guy Clarks country, or Townes Van Zandt's country or like most of the horrid lip sync country that comes in cowboy hats and pressed jeans shrink wrapped from Nashville. Guy Clark and Townes I can't live without, the crap from Nashville I occasionally endure. Dale Watson can come play me his country, preferably in an Austin bar, anytime he likes.

As Dale Watson and his Lone Stars demonstrated at the Borderline tonight their country is rooted in tradition. Tonight, for me, was akin to driving an 18 wheel truck down to Austin, Texas with a country music station on the radio. The fact that I had driven an old Volvo up from Portsmouth with three Isle of Wight country fans (Brian and Jan Munro, Les as navigator) was neither here nor there. When the band struck up I jumped continents like switching radio stations with a turn of a dial. Compass set for the sweetest little place for music I know on planet earth, Awesome, Texas.

The Borderline was little more packed than usual tonight, testimony to the touring work put in by Dale Watson and his band. They have been gigging here hard and regular. Incredibly, as Watson will point out later, without financial support from record companies. "Just relying on you good people to turn up, thank you, really appreciate it."

So the Borderline was heaving tonight, a buzz, everyone crammed tight around that little stage awaiting the off. On stage Dale Watson's rhythm player was nonchalantly leaning his cowboy boot against the side wall eyes fixed on the door for the band to come on. He's fingering chords on a big semi acoustic rhythm guitar with tremolo arm, a cowboy hat sat firmly on his head. In front of him is a pedal steel awaiting like an empty cadillac for the key to be turned. A pared down drum set sits at the back of the stage. Just a snare, big bass drum and a cymbal. An electric Fender is strung on the amp centre stage.

Finally musicians take the stage and the audience give out a collective cry of relief. Sans Dale Watson the band, bass, drums, pedal and rhythm kick off into a tune. No more than a few bars another roar greets Dale Watson as he climbs onto the stage, grabs his Fender, smiles and rolls straight into it.

Watson looks every inch like he just dropped out of a James Dean movie. A mop of combed back jet black hair, a boyish face like a cross between Dean and Montgomery Clift. He's slight, a short sleeved shirt revealing muscular arms adorned in tattoos and wrists wrapped in leather and bracelets. Black slacks and black pointed cowboy boots, Austin style. When Dale Watson sings his voice conjures up a jukebox in a time before the Beatles. Pure country, part swoon, part spoken, soft but strong delivered without breaking sweat. He fingers the Fender's neck like he is handling a Ming vase. Simple, graceful chord shapes, lots of those big 'ol Fiftie's twanging bass lines interspersed by sharp staccato treble licks. Subtle rather than gung ho.

The sound never quite gelled for me early on. Individually it was chock full of delights but to these ears seemed to be coasting rather hitting the button. My good friend Brian Munro indicated that the rhythm player seemed to be fluffing chord changes as though he were unfamiliar with where the band was going. "He wasn't with them when I saw Dale Watson at Babe's in Austin," explained Brian whose just back from Awesome, Texas.

No matter. Whether it was my unfamiliarity with the songs or that the set was a lot less gung ho than I had expected, I soon warmed to it. Ricky Davis played pedal steel real sweet, achingly sweet. The bass player made it all sound so simple. The drummer sat there clipping rhythms out of his pared down kit like he could have done it with just a beer glass. Watson's guitar sounded at times like a second pedal steel cutting in and around Ricky Davis's lines. Part boogie, cool steel and trucker's favourites.

Dale Watson had the audience rootin' for him right from the off. As he went to apologise for doing something that was generally beneath his integrity someone shouted "You're going to play a Garth Brooks song?" Mass laughter and Watson saying he was about to ask for a beer. So Watson accepted beer from the audience and a couple of tequila's later on. Each tequila went down with a single back shake of the head and down the throat, a little double kick of the boots and blowing steam into the microphone. His tequila love song turned his words into a slurred haze that drifted like smoke in a honky tonk and would have made a cracking video sample.

Staying well off the Garth Brooks territory, Dale Watson lambasted Nashville and celebrated a host of country artists like Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Bill Monroe, Luther Preston and Merle Haggard. It is to Haggard, perhaps, he owes most of his singing style. Dale Watson's set will feature Haggard's Sing Me Back Home and a superb version of Mama Tried.

Dale Watson is championing the real country, largely of a byegone age. There might not be much that is original in his songs but it doesn't make them any the less relevant. They are, in a sense, embued of the tradition of honky tonk bars, small town Texas rather than overblown Nashville.

In particular tonight I got hooked by two songs. Both tributes to artists that I know by reputation rather than records. Watson told a lovely story about Lefty Frizzell writing a song to his wife in a Mexican jail and his song for Lefty came like country record being played on a jukebox in a small Texas town. Luther Preston similarly was immortalised in a new song which the band really cooked on.

By the end of what, by Texas standards (three hours at Babe's in Austin says Brian and Jan Munro) was a short set the band sounded good and fired. Ready to really cook into the night. Unfortunately the party always ends early at the Borderline. Those who want more might be persuaded to go, as in the Dale Watson song, 'South of Round Rock, Texas' where the 'c' word changes to 'd'. That stands for Don Walser, Dale Watson and the Derailers.

Mike Plumbley

Drummers don't get enough credit, in my opinion . . .