Willie Watson - Dancing On My Own (Lyrics On Screen)
Willie Watson's cover of Patrik Berger, Robyn's Dancing On My Own, Released on May 15, 2020
William Currie Watson (born September 23, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, banjo player, actor and founding member of Old Crow Medicine Show. His debut solo album Folk Singer, Vol. I was released in May 2014; its follow-up Folksinger, Vol. 2 was released September 15, 2017, on Acony Records. He has appeared at the Newport Folk Festival and other major music festivals. He currently resides in the Woodland Hills district of Los Angeles.
Watson appears as The Kid in Joel and Ethan Coen's 2018 film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, also performing on the soundtrack.
Watson's transition to solo appearances began slowly with an invitation from siblings Sean and Sara Watkins to join them on a Cayamo cruise—a "singer-songwriter, folk, rootsy festival on a ship around the Bahamas." Sean "took the liberty" of putting Watson on the performance schedule. He subsequently would "go pretty often and ... sing a few songs" at "this little revue called the Watkins Family Hour at Largo" where the Watkins would encourage him to try appearing solo.
In 2012–2013 Watson began appearing in venues in and around Venice Beach, California, making appearances with the John C. Reilly band and John Prine, and opening for acts such as Punch Brothers, Sarah Jarosz, and Dawes. Initially, he was performing original music, then realized he got more out of performing the old songs—and his audience seemed to enjoy them more. As he explains:
Once I was on my own, I wasn't sure what my next move was–if I was going to have another band, or try to write a bunch of songs. At first, I did start writing songs, but I don't think I was satisfied with what I was writing. I was starting to do some solo shows, and I had a few songs I'd written, and I would do a mix of those with old traditional songs, at those early shows. I was a lot happier doing those old folk songs, and I think the crowd was a lot happier, too. I thought those were great songs that people should be hearing, and that I wanted to be singing.