Dale Watson "Every Song I Write Is For You" Audium Entertainment by David Pilot
	"Audium is ballsy to do this. Some people said, 'This is too depressing.' Well, some of it is sad-'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry' is a sad song too-but there's also perspective and happiness about what we did have together. We'll see if radio's too scared to provoke any real emotion because there's nothing more real than this." --Dale Watson's take on his new CD, "Every Song I Write Is For You." Depressing? Yes. And no. Dale lost the woman he calls his soulmate, Terri Lynn Herbert, on September 15th of last year. The two were engaged, and on that day Terri fell asleep driving to Houston to meet the man who is still waiting for her to arrive. On December 28th, when you and I were readying for New Year's parties and football, Dale was in an Austin hotel room mixing alcohol and pills. Shortly after New Year's, while you and I were sending our sympathies to Billy Joe and mourning the godawful loss of Eddie Shaver, Dale was in the nuthouse (his words) finding himself so he could learn to cope with Terri's death. Lost in the haze of sorrow, waking up every day and hearing for the first time that Terri had been killed, and reliving the horror over and over, he almost cracked completely. Unlike the Kurt Cobains of the world, though, Dale found strength and a refuge in his friends and in the music, and in honoring the memory of what he and Terri had shared instead of wallowing in the mire of what he had lost. He began writing the songs on this album as his own personal way of coping, pouring out his heartache and joy and memories and lessons he'd learned onto pieces of paper and singing them for himself. Never intended to sell 'em. But some copies made the rounds anyway, and began to be sold to help support the Terri Herbert Foundation-amazed by the response, Dale found a label to produce and distribute the disc that became "Every Song I Write Is For You." Audium Records took the chance, and for those willing to listen it pays off. This is the kind of CD that could have very easily landed smack dab on top of the cheeseball heap, suitable only for maudlin performance by Captain Corny and His Muskrat Horns in a Holiday Inn lounge near you. Maybe because it wasn't written for your ears, though, it didn't turn out that way. There's really nothing in this universe more honest or clear than a brokedown man telling himself the cold hard truth. No phrasing for other ears, no softening of the blow for tender sensibilities, no empty machismo claiming it's time to cowboy up-just the horrible, tender, merciless heart-healing resounding truth. When it's done completely, it saves and changes lives. When it's done half-assed, it destroys them. On "Every Song I Write," Dale Watson told the complete bitter lifesaving truth, then he put it to music and found a way back to the heart and soul of what makes country music matter. You like to sway to the music You like the feel of a tune A woman of words You liked what you heard, You wanted a song just for you. . . Fourteen cuts deep, this CD goes all over the spectrum and paints its stories in vivid Technicolor. From the times that Terri Lynn told Dale he should write a song just for her, through the old barfly Sonny propped crying against a jukebox in a smoky bar holding a faded picture of his long-gone wife Rose, the people are textured and real and every bit as small and vulnerable and battered and resilient and big as life. The musical style is also varied, covering every facet of the traditional country genre. Watson's voice, rich and true as expected, is buoyed and sometimes amplified, if not carried altogether, by the expert steel work of Ricky Davis. Solid bass work from Billy Dee Donahue and Scott Matthews' drums lay down a foundation for everything else, and John Blondell's trombone adds feeling to certain cuts the way Clarence Clemens' mournful sax did for Springsteen so many times. Add Matt Powell on mandolin and classical guitar, Floyd Domino on the keyboards and Alice Spencer haunting the vocals on "Hey Chico," you've got one hell of a lineup. Even though a lover's gone I believe that love lives on I can't stop this need in me I fantasize and make believe. . . Some of what's on display here was laid out and planned as a song from the beginning. Some of it wasn't. Here's Dale on "You're The Best Part Of Me": "I wrote this during a wedding that was the first show I played after the accident. I told my band to get in the key and follow along and I made it up on stage. It's thinking about me and Terri and realizing all that I gained instead of what I lost." Then on "Your Love I'm Gonna Miss:" "A typical morning for me and her, the way our day would go, and what I miss about her now." This song washes over the senses like an early morning West Texas rain, quiet in its beginnings and building to a steady patter of gray and cleaning droplets beating against the windows of the soul. Wake up in the morning, radio alarming Turn it off, then snuggle and kiss. Gotta get going, can't let go, And you say Wait, just one more minute. Finally make it out of bed Now look how late it's getting We should be at work but instead We draw back under covers holdin' one another Your Love I'm gonna miss. . . The tune rises and falls on the soft prairie winds of a pedal steel, and the muffled snare in the background taps the panes incessantly and smoothly. This is warm summer breezes bearing pungent odors of fresh tilled earth, highways rolling across endless desert under West Texas thunderheads aweing you with their power and unchained majesty, clean cotton dresses and half-remembered homesick snatches of childhoods spent splashing through puddles on the tail of the dream. There is "One More For Her," the song that remembers a dinner shared in the warm evenings of Spain and a bottle of wine sworn to remain unopened until Dale and Terri could be together forever for good. "I See My Future," where the above-mentioned Sonny crying for his Rose prompted Dale to wonder if he was seeing what he would be one day. "Angel In My Dreams" tells how each night Terri Lynn returns to Watson's bed and love is again real and tangible. As he says, that is the best and the worst part. I had a dream last night that felt so real I woke myself up With tears of joy 'cause you were still here Even though in my mind I denied it. You hugged me just like you hugged me each night Before God took you away. At least now and then I get to hold you again, My Angel in my dreams. Heaven must know how empty I am Without you in my life To send you down here to comfort my fears, To keep me from losing my mind. Just when I think that I'm on the brink Of falling apart at the seams I get a gift I know is heaven sent My Angel in my dreams. . . There isn't much more to write about this CD. I don't have the words to do it justice. I will say this, though: If you have loved and lost, if you love now, or if you ever want to, you owe this a listen. It may be too quiet overall for your tastes, it may even be "too country" for your disposition. But it is timeless and it is true and it is damned heartbreakingly poignant and honest in every sense. It may be taboo to include notes from a live show in a CD review such as this. I'm going to do it anyway. I saw Dale Watson play the White Elephant in Fort Worth on Saturday July 7th, a two and a half weeks before this CD would be released. I heard him sing several cuts. I saw the bass player's surprise when I danced by holding my wife tight on "Money Can't Buy Her Love" singing along with every word-nobody was supposed to know the lyrics yet. Most importantly, it was obvious as Dale sang these songs just how truly real they are to him. For a few moments the musty old boards of the historic beer hall became Dale Watson's private room, and, eyes closed, alone in his memories he sang these love songs again to Terri Lynn for the first time. The two hundred or so of us in there got to listen. There's nothing in the intimacy of that moment that didn't come through on the CD. There's nothing cheap or maudlin about the tears or the pain that shine through so clearly in each cut, and there's nothing fabricated about the hope that still bubbles in Dale's heart. He told me after the show that the thing he keeps hearing is how "Every Song I Write Is For You" makes men like me love our wives a little bit more. He said that, in some screwed up but essential way, makes his loss bearable and worth it. Then he looked down at the sawdust and staved off a tear-and there's the essence of what this album is about. This past New Year's, Eddie Shaver lost his battle with his demons, and "The Earth Rolls On" is a painful ­but important-listen as a result. At that same time, Dale Watson squared off and faced down his demons, and "Every Song I Write Is For You" is a life and love-affirming country masterpiece as a result.   "out of that hardship came the best songs I've ever written. This album is the most important album I've ever done in the way that it touches those who've ever known love and those who've loved and lost. It's my hope that these songs relate to the heart of the listener, that they are not alone in their loss and to teach an appreciation for the love we experienced. Yes, it's a love song album with no apologies. This album is dedicated to Teresa Lynn Herbert. I love you little girl." -Dale   You can contact David Pilot at: tailgunner-at-rockzilla.net

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