Dale Watson

Dale Watson is a honky tonk hero and country music maverick, a true outlaw carrying on where Waylon Jennings left off. A member of the Austin Music Hall of Fame, he stands alongside Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and George Strait as one of the finest country singers and songwriters from the Lone Star State.

In the late eighties, he played in the house band at the legendary Palomino Club in Hollywood for a couple years and recorded a few singles before moving to Nashville to write songs for a publishing company run by Gary Morris (writer of such country/pop hits as “The Wind Beneath My Wings”). Commercial country did not fit the fiercely independent songwriter so Dale relocated to Austin, Texas where he got a record deal and wrote several songs poking fun at the industry side of Nashville.

Dale has toured around the world and acting in films (The Thing Called Love, On the Borderline), on television (Friday Night Lights) and on stage in Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, a southern gothic musical by Stephen King and John Mellencamp . His rumbling baritone has also been heard on commercials for Shell, Monster.com and On the Border Restaurants. He has had multiple appearances on late-night television and NPR.

“I’m one of Dale’s biggest fans.” - Willie Nelson

“Nothing else is Dale Watson. In he strode in a long black Cash-worthy coat with long leather cuffs and a tux shirt. His white hair was ship’s prow, or perhaps a mighty iceberg. And his Telecaster guitar, festooned with silver coins of every size and denomination, glinted in the footlights. All through, Dale’s banter was loose and wry. His guitar tone was just platonically perfect.” - Music City Roots