Einstein (supposedly) defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. On his new album, Call Me Insane, Austin’s honky-tonk hero Dale Watson has taken that idea and applied it to one of our most insanity-inducing emotions: love. “Apparently, I ain’t too good at it,” Watson told KUTX’s Jay Trachtenberg in Studio 1A. But what he is good at is holding a torch for the kind of old-school country you rarely hear nowadays. For decades, he’s united his love for George Jones, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings into his own kind of sound, and he’s starting to get recognition outside of the city limits. The Wall Street Journal recently called him a “leading voice” in country music, though with twenty albums under his belt, Watson chalks it up to hard work and persistence.
Watson and his Lone Stars are at the Continental Club tonight as a part of his regular Monday night residency–an Austin institution if there’s ever been one. Celebrate with a Studio 1A version of “Call Me Insane,” which you can download below.
–Art Levy