Willie Watson stormed into the Green Mountain State last night at
Higher Ground and took all the hearts and minds with him when he left. He has not only redefined himself as a folk-singing solo act—something he never saw himself being—but, if he keeps it up, he could well become one of the major voices in American folk music.
Up there with bigs like
Pete Seeger and
Arlo Guthrie. But his voice pulls from previous sources, from way up in the mountains. Not only his interpretations—his stylings—but the sheer force of his pipes hollers down at us from Appalachia. From before the time of microphones and amplification.
There's no doubting his authenticity.
His song picker is singular, each choice jammed with urgency and feeling. Going back to earlier, lesser-known versions of songs—like
Lead Belly's take on "
Midnight Special"—is gutsy. But he creates whole new song experiences that are already developing devoted followers.
When Willie sings a song you hang on every word to see what will happen, to get the meaning, and to seek release from the pain the writer was in when he sat down to write it. Women turning men into mules, men shooting women with shotguns,
Mexican gold, racehorses named "Stewball"—it's all there for folk song lover in us all.
Gill Landry (a.k.a. Frank Lemon)—the singer/songwriter-guitarist born in Lake Charles, Louisiana who joined Old Crow Medicine Show when founding member Chris "Critter" Fuqua left for treatment in 2004—is apparently no longer with the group.
Judging by the stated intention of his solo debut album Folk Singer Vol. I, and recent appearing at Higher Grounds in South Burlington, Willie has redefined himself as a classic American folk singer. By all indications, he's establishing himself as one of the greats, and in very short order (yes, he's that good).
For its part, Old Crow itself was facing a bit of a two-part identity crisis: How to define itself without Willie Watson, and how to make itself bigger than its monster hit "Wagon Wheel". That's what their new album Remedy remedies. As Sam Pfeifle of The Portland Phoenix puts it in his review of the new release: "Such is Old Crow’s magic. They make brand-new songs sound like traditionals and traditionals sound like songs you’ve never heard before."
