Folksinger, multi-instrumentalist (guitar, banjo, harmonica), and sometimes songwriter
Willie Watson heard a
Lead Belly record when he was 12 years old and his musical course was set. Growing up in Watkins Glen, New York,
Watson listened to his father's record collection, which included plenty of artists like
Bob Dylan and
Neil Young, as well as
Lead Belly, and later he discovered Harry Smith's famous folk anthology, all of which informed the style and substance of the traditional and old-time music
Watson would make his own. He was one of the founding members of
the Old Crow Medicine Show, a quintet that specialized in a traditional American string band sound and had left-field platinum success with a revamped
Bob Dylan song, "Wagon Wheel," in the late '90s, recording and touring with the group for some 17 years before leaving to go solo in 2011. He released his debut solo album,
Folk Singer, Vol. 1, produced by
David Rawlings, early in 2014 on
Rawlings and
Gillian Welch's Acony Records imprint. ~ Steve Leggett