From the Cradle to the Grave (CD - 2007)

Personnel: Dale Watson (vocals, guitar); Dale Watson; Don Pawlak (pedal steel guitar); Don Raby (fiddle); Jon Blondell (trombone); Gene Kurtz (bass guitar); John McTigue (drums).

Audio Mixer: James Intveld.

Recording information: Bismeaux Studios, Austin, TX; Johnny Knoxville's Log Cabin, Hendersonville, TN.

Photographer: Rob Buck.

Though Dale Watson still excels at honky-tonk, this 2007 album reveals an edgier side to his songwriting, with a Johnny Cash-like darkness lurking beneath the surface of songs like "Justice For All" and the stern "You Always Get What You Always Got," and the somber message of the title track undercutting its cheerful fiddle accompaniment. Watson can still rock with the best of them, though, and the album's final track, "Runaway Train," displays both singer and band at their extrovert best.

If the ghost of Johnny Cash hovers throughout the grooves of From the Cradle to the Grave, that's not coincidental. The recording was made in a Hendersonville, TN, cabin once owned by the late country icon -- all the better to showcase Dale Watson's deep, Cash-like baritone -- and the no-frills settings Watson brings to the songs bear more than a faint echo of the Man in Black: on "Hollywood Hillbilly" that might as well be the minimalist Tennessee Three twanging behind the singer, and ol' JC even gets name-checked in the lyrics (as do Willie, Hank, and Lefty, but still...). Then there's the story that introduces the record: "Justice for All," a tale of righteousness fighting the good fight against vengeance and coming up short. But to peg From the Cradle to the Grave as a Cash tribute and nothing more would be to sell it short. The Austinite's been at it for a long time himself, and his renegade credentials are well established and verifiable. The song material here may ring familiar -- "Yellow Mama," is, after all, an ode to an electric chair -- and so may the voice, but Watson puts enough of his own personality into his delivery that the album is never in danger of being saddled with a copycat tag. Watson can't help it if he's got good taste in influences, but he's sharp and smart enough to pay his respects while also shaking free of them, and he leaves no doubt whose album this is. ~ Jeff Tamarkin minimize