Dale Watson

Everything else you might read about this album is going to mention something about how it sounds haunted by the ghost of Johnny Cash and that it was recorded in the very same Hendersonville, Tenn., cabin once owned by the Man In Black. Dale Watson's throaty baritone helps, of course, but songs like the sidesplitting "Hollywood Hillbilly" gallop with Watson's own brand of California honky-tonk. Even Bakersfield-inspired ditties like "Runaway Train" and "Yellow Mama" sound more like innovations of the sound, rather than imitations.