Don Walser – Texas Top Hand / Dale Watson – Blessed or Damned
Don Walser and Dale Watson are both bringing classic country music into the ’90s, and while these two Austin-based singers may differ in musical approach, their new albums offer hope for those yearning for more traditional country sounds.
Walser’s new album, Texas Top Hand, is comprised of the kind of music he’s been singing for most of his life — honky tonk, Western swing and cowboy songs, along with the occasional romantic ballad. The new album sticks to the pattern of his Watermelon debut, Rolling Stone From Texas, mixing a generous amount of classic country covers with a few originals. Texas Top Hand even begins the same way, with the title song — like Rolling Stone From Texas, it’s a fine yodeling vehicle that gives Walser a chance to show off his amazing pipes while proudly proclaiming his Texas heritage.
Though he’s in his 60s, Walser’s singing sounds more powerful than ever. He’s able to make even the hoariest standard sound fresh and alive. He gracefully swings through a big-band version of a song associated with Bob Wills, “Whose Heart Are You Breaking Now”; knocks out of the park Faron Young’s barroom classic, “Wine Me Up” (curiously misspelled on the jacket as “Wind Me Up”); gets tough and spunky with Merle Travis’ “Divorce Me C.O.D”; and resurrects the little-known Jacky Ward hit “Big Blue Diamonds”. Walser wraps it all up with a gorgeous version of “Danny Boy”, taking a cue from Ray Price, another Texan with a powerful, operatic voice (and one of Walser’s personal favorites).
The three Walser originals are also superb. In addition to the title song, Walser contributes “Signposts Of Life”, some smartly written, common-sense advice about heeding “the laws of nature,” as Walser puts it in his liner notes. The other Walser original, “You Walk By”, is a nice variation on the classic country theme explored in “Almost Persuaded” and “On The Other Hand” — resisting the urge to cheat in the face of powerful temptation. With his demonstrated songwriting ability, it’s too bad Walser doesn’t write more.
Like the first Watermelon album, Texas Top Hand was produced by Ray Benson and T.J. McFarland, with accompaniment provided by members of Asleep At The Wheel, a few Texas legends and some members of Walser’s Pure Texas Band. Considering the band’s fine live musicianship, it’s a puzzle why Watermelon doesn’t let Walser record with just the Pure Texas Band. As they’ve proven night after night, they’re more than capable of backing Walser without the additional big-name firepower.
Walser’s repertoire and influences are as broad and varied as the Lone Star State, but Dale Watson, who’s about half Walser’s age, works from a more narrow stylistic base that focuses on the Bakersfield sound of Merle and Buck, along with other ’60s and ’70s hard-country types such as Johnny Bush, Gene Watson and Stonewall Jackson. While Watson’s fine 1995 debut album for Hightone, Cheatin’ Heart Attack, ended with a faithful cover of Stonewall’s “Don’t Be Angry”, Watson wrote or co-wrote all 14 songs on the new follow-up album, Blessed Or Damned.
Watson’s at his best with driving uptempo songs such as the opener, “Truckin’ Man”, where a pencil-pusher fantasizes about being a “gearjammer with a one-armed tan”. In fact, that song and “Truck Stop In La Grange” are good evidence that Watson could cut a hell of an album of truck-driving songs. Like classic truck-song stylists Dave Dudley and Red Simpson, Watson has a deep burly voice; his vocals mostly bring to mind Merle, but without quite the suppleness of Hag’s delivery.
Other winners include “Fly Away”, a great end-of-the-workday song with a liberating gospel feel that makes bellying up to the bar after a hard day’s work sound downright heavenly. There’s also Watson’s tribute to his favorite hat, courtesy of “Cowboy Lloyd Cross”. The rolling rhythms of “It’s All Behind Us Now” recall classic Waylon, and “Sweet Jessie Brown” is a lovely, bittersweet song that’s musically similar to Hag’s “I Take A Lot Of Pride In What I Am”.
No doubt Watson’s love of classic country music is sincere, but occasionally he strains a little too hard to evoke its spirit. In the title song, he casts the lot of the musician in mythic proportions: “God blessed some folks with music, and what a holy art,” the song begins, which might even rival Garth Brooks for self-importance. Elsewhere, “A Real Country Song” scolds a country DJ for not playing the classics (as if commercial DJs nowadays actually have any say in the matter). The theme echoes Watson’s brilliant “Nashville Rash” from Cheatin’ Heart Attack, but this time it sounds like he’s trying too hard for a follow-up. “That’s What I Like About Texas” features a duet with Johnny Bush, and while it’s always nice to hear the Country Caruso, the list of Lone Star pleasures in the lyrics is pretty uninspiring.
Still, Watson connects much more than he misses, and while he isn’t always as graceful as Walser when it comes to embodying the spirit of classic country, his new album, like Walser’s, is the real deal.