Folk Singer, Vol. 1

Album review

Willie Watson belongs to these troubadours filled with nostalgia for bygone eras. The album Folk Singer, Volume 1 emphasizes all the musical culture belonging to the American classic repertoire. It’s modern folk music that doesn’t forget its traditional roots. Willie Watson caught the string bug, whether guitar strings or banjo strings, and you don’t have to add anything more to these tunes already filled with so many stories and memories. There no excess! Here is some raw music overflowing with sincerity and emotion. A second birth for Long John Dean, on which banjo notes insinuate themselves through Watson’s nasal voice and an album getting off to a good start with Midnight Special. Have you never been touched by the light before? Let the man do it and propel you through this prisoner song sung by American Southerners. Leadbelly has finally found a partner able to pass down this powerful and poignant music. But Watson also knows how to revive a certain melancholy through legendary ballads such as James Alley Blues or even Rock Salt and Nails, notably popularized by the great Steve Young. The highly peculiar vibrato of the co-founder of Old Crow Medicine Show underlines the complexity of this folksy music. It’s an unforgettable trip that will allow you to discover or rediscover the Delta blues, the Southern gospel and of course the classic country. © Clara Bismuth/Qobuz