Folk singer, vol. 1

"He sounds like he's fallen through a portal from a century ago. Watson's banjo and guitar playing is expert but understated, and he and producer David Rawlings allow the songs - by turns bleak, bawdy and surreal - to cast their antique spell. A stark but engaging set".

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"If [the album's cover and title] arouses any suspicions of a mere post-Llewyn Davis bandwagon hop here, let all such doubts be cast from your minds and your joys be unconfined, for this is the real deal, folks ... With a track list including familiar fare like "Midnight Special" and "Stewball", and sourced from the likes of Big Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly, Roscoe Holcomb, Memphis Slim, Utah Phillips and Gus Cannon, Watson's ability to comprehensively inhabit these songs, delivered solo to the accompaniment of his own guitar or banjo, is hugely impressive. Producer David Rawlings (who, together with associate producer Gillian Welch, knows a thing or two about this stuff) claims that "Willie is the only one of his generation who can make me forget these songs were ever sung before"... In short, Willie Watson sounds like a man who's been both high and lonesome and lived to tell the tale. The tremble in his voice can make you quake, and his mastery of that sound is absolute".