Willie Watson’s appearance at London’s legendary 100 Club on a chilly Saturday night marked the end of a short tour to the UK which began in Hackney with an AMAUK showcase the day he flew in from Los Angeles and included a performance at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections.
Watson looked noticeably more awake than he had on that first date as he took the stage at 8pm (an early finish for club night). Armed with acoustic guitar, banjo and his own harmonica rack, he greeted the sold-out crowd, checked his tuning and stepped into the set opener ‘Already Gone’ with its easy Fred Neil-like melody. Despite the sparseness of the backing on his eponymous new album, it’s still quite a surprise to hear this in the bare solo acoustic context.
Watson removed his jacket before ‘Sad Song’, a Dylan-ish tune with its bittersweet lyric “there’s always a sad song living in my heart.” Swapping guitar for the banjo, he leans into the traditional ‘I Wish I was A Mole In. The Ground’. The audience laps up the banjo. After it’s done, he commends the version he learned it from by Bascar Lamar Lunsford.
‘Slim And The Devil’ is introduced with Watson explaining how he wrote the music to the words of a Sterling Brown poem. The song, which is the first track on the new record, has a classic folk tale structure and once again we notice the contrast to the recorded version of this stripped-back take on the song. Watson then took the mood down a tad explaining the back story to the plaintive ‘One To Fall’ involving a lunch with an old friend and an exchange with another. It’s the song that comes closest stylistically to the songs he wrote for Old Crow Medicine Show. The mood is punctured with some sharp crackles as his guitar lead tried to escape. “Start over” an audience member shouted. “Nah, I don’t do that” cracked Watson and dropped straight back in at the point he’d been interrupted.
‘Play It One More Time’, a song which invites comparison with Tim Hardin, was the sixth straight song from the new record after which Watson picked up the banjo once more and hammered his way through a raucous ‘Mexican Cowboy’ much to the approval of the audience. Back on the guitar and with harmonica in place, Watson picked out the distinctive intro to ‘Gallows Pole‘ to which most sang along.
He introduces ‘Dancing On My Own’ as a Swedish dance song which is still played there. The melody has a European feel while the lyric paints a sad picture of the rejected narrator in the country ballroom left to dance by himself in a corner. Next up is Watson’s take on Utah Phillips’ ‘Rock Salt And Nails’ which was one of the highlights of his debut “Folk Singer Vol 1”.
The spoken word segment that precedes ‘Reap ‘Em In The Valley’ on the record is replaced with a tale of Watson growing up in a wrestling family and a less than sparking record of one win in many years of defeats. That win took place against a Nathan Weed in circumstances which Watson suggested pointed to his opponent having thrown the fight. Out of wrestling, he took up the guitar and singing with the endorsement his wrestling coach dad. It was a sweet intro to the song with its Carter family references.
The set closed with his tribute to his wife on ‘Real Love’. It was the album’s first single and is a song clearly close to its writer’s heart. He steps briefly off stage, is turned around by security and hops straight back on to a pretty rapturous reception. Picking up guitar and harmonica he tells how he was called up by the Coen brothers to appear in “The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs” and how with the make-up and costume he transformed into his character. What followed was a moving ‘When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings’ drawing the imagery from Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ evocative song.
Finally, Watson picked up the banjo one more time for a belting version of ‘John Henry‘ which left the audience shouting for more but saw the headliner heading for the dressing room.
Support for the night came from Blessing Jolie, a 23-year-old Nigerian American who had been inspired to switch a career in tech for one in music by a love of Ed Sheeran. She performed five songs which veered from folk to R&B. She has an excellent vocal range and sense of dynamics. At times, I was reminded of obvious comparators, Joan Armatrading and Tracy Chapman but at others there was a touch of Mary J Blige. It will be interesting to see how she progresses as her style settles.
