One More Once More

Though Dale Watson is best known as a primal Honky-Tonker with a fierce traditionalist streak and an earth shaking baritone that recalls Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and other Bakersfield legends, he's also an incredibly prolific and stylistically adventurous artist whose massive catalog reveals an artistic reach that goes far beyond the bare bones Honky-Tonk for which he is most famous. While 2003’s One More Once More may not be as immediately inviting as stone country classics like Whiskey or God and From The Cradle To The Grave, it is arguably one of Watson’s most fascinating outings. It finds him forsaking floor shaking country for laid back, jazz-inflected arrangements that are a slick as his previous work is rugged. Ray Price’s Night Life and Willie Nelson’s Stardust were both successful forays into slick crooner territory undertaken by confirmed honky-tonkers and One More Once More effortlessly recaptures the nightclub atmosphere that made those albums so compelling.