Watson shares, “During the lockdown, I sat there in my house in Memphis with a perfectly fine analog studio underneath me in the basement called Wat-Sun Studios. I decided, what the heck. I always said the famous ‘if I ever got round-to-it’ I’d make an instrumental record. I decided to use the band I was using for my live streams that I would do from my bar, Hernando’s Hideaway. I would use the bar, since it was closed from lockdown as a rehearsal studio. From there, we worked up ‘Hernando’s Swang,’ a song inspired by the fact that we would have ‘swing night’ once a week at Hernando’s. Mario Monterosso and I wrote the song in Wat-Sun Studios in 20 minutes!” Listen now: Watson has released 20 albums, but The Memphians marks his first foray into the all-instrumental realm. The album overall is a well-rounded collection of classic honky-tonk delights. Recorded in just two days at his Memphis studio, Wat-Sun Studio with Memphis musicians, Watson wrote all tracks but the four that he co-wrote with Mario Monterosso, who plays electric guitar on record. Dale Watson is applauded as a country music maverick—a true outlaw who stands alongside Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and George Strait as one of the finest country singers and songwriters from the Lone Star State. Founding his own country music sub-genre dubbed “Ameripolitan” to differentiate from the current crop of Nashville-based pop country, Watson has flown the flag for classic honky-tonk music for more than two decades. The Alabama-born, Texas-raised Watson may be the hardest working entertainer today, playing over 300 shows per year, and is rapidly approaching legend status. The Memphians(BFD/Audium Nashville) releases on Feb. 26, 2020 but you can pre-order here. Next, do people who are tone-deaf hear music differently?
