| Sings - Gene Watson | |
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Reviewed by Kathy Coleman
One thing you can count on no matter what happens in country music is that Gene Watson will produce really good country music.
This disc is one of those ones that kind of depresses me, but not because of the music; well, partially. It's because I never hear this music on country radio. Gene Watson belongs on the country charts. This is tremendous, "accessible," "feel-good" country music, with all the right elements. I imagine it's that tired refrain, "he's too country," and there's nothing a country music lover can do to counter that moronic phrase. The suits seem to stand fast by it. If an artist is "too country," it doesn't matter how good they are, they won't be played on the radio.
Oh, well. Gene Watson's got all the right elements here: Cheating, drinking,
leaving, lying, and of course, crying. For those of us who DO happen to like our country
music "way too country," thank God we have Gene Watson.
We have Watson performing straightforward plain old honky-tonk country, drawing on songs written by the likes of Bill Anderson and Clint Daniels and a stable of other greats and singing them with his crisp, clean, "man that guy can sing" vocals. When you listen to the honky-tonk two-step sound of "When A Man Can't Get A Woman Off His Mind," you might, like me, lament this song isn't being played on the radio several times a day. Maybe you, too, remember when songs like this not only DID get radio play, but would sit in the top ten until you actually got tired of them, but they were
so good you didn't mind hearing them four times an hour. When Watson sings "When She Comes Back," it hits harder, because this song really should be a hit, a big one. It's even a "positive country love song."
Watson joins up the current trend toward the countrified Jimmy Buffett beach sound with the lighthearted "The Coast of Texas," a chipper two-step rhythm with some superior steel and fiddle sounds, and he closes off the disc with a strong love song, "Hold Me."
Just good country music. How hard is that? Gene Watson makes it sound perfectly effortless. I guess we just have to say to heck with radio and go out and buy this disc if we want to hear it. Fortunately, it's worth it.
Song List:
Album cover, used with permission of Compendia Records
