Dale Watson: The Titanium Fox

  • Patterson Hood and the Screwtopians stopped by the Daytrotter Sessions to lay down some Southern fried goodness.
  • The Texas Country Music Hall of Fame have inducted Texas natives Neal McCoy, Michael Martin Murphey and Linda Davis to be added to the previous years members that includes Willie Nelson, Tanya Tucker and Jimmy Dean.
  • Producer and musician and Jim Rooney will be honored by the Americana Music Association with the Lifetime Achievement for Producer/Engineer award at the 8th Annual Americana Honors & Awards ceremony, scheduled for Thurs., Sept. 17 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Rooney has worked with John Prine, Iris DeMent, Tom Paxton and Peter Rowan – as well as his work on Nanci Griffith’s Grammy-winning “Other Voices Other Rooms. Rooney’s contributions as an engineer, musician, producer and songwriter has reached almost 150 albums to date.
  • Alluding to  Charlie Rich’s moniker The Silver Fox, The Scene designates Dale Watson the The titanium fox in this great interview featting classic exchanged like this:

SCENE: You write about the trucking life in the spirit of Dave Dudley and Red Sovine with maybe a touch of Cledus Maggard. What is the allure of that subject matter?

DW: I grew up when CB was king. There was an appreciation of the open road and the usefulness of the citizens band radio. Cell phones are great to keep in touch with the ones you love, but the CB is a useful tool to avoid some hazardous situations. Back then, Conway Twitty was big, the movie Convoy was popular, and the show BJ & the Bear was on TV.

SCENE: What the hell was happening on BJ & the Bear? At the end of each show the monkey would walk away with chicks in hot pants. What was supposed to happen between a monkey and human women?

DW: (laughing) I don’t want to think about it.

Unfortunately Dale is still raising his goofy Ameripolitan flag to describe his throwback honky-tonk sound.