Twenty-four year old Ben Watson’s story is set against the provincial backdrop of Newcastle, England, a city rife with blue collar coal mining history. With so much family to look after, money was spread thin in the Watson household, and though Ben refers to his parents as upper-middle class intellectuals, their economic standing was less than eminent.

As a young teen, Ben found himself straying into a wayward lifestyle. General misbehavior and truancy lead to his eventual expulsion from high school, and he subsidized a budding penchant for smoke and drink by shoplifting and other petty crimes.

“My teenage years weren’t very happy,” he explains in a low toned Geordie accent. “Not just general teen angst. I broke down a few times, and basically drove myself into the ground from the age of 13 to the age of 20.”

Music was a footnote in Ben’s autobiography. He’d received his first guitar at the age of ten, but found more comfort and resonance in the music of others, specifically 20th century American folk, blues and gospel. It not only shaped his creative vision, but it left an indelible mark on his opinions and ideals. Still, there was a lot of internal work left to be done.

Hoping to change his present course, Ben enrolled in a music college, but his old ways soon caught up with him. Low on funds, he stole drum machines from the college music store and put them up with a local pawnbroker.

“One day I was in the shop to cash a check, and someone who worked at the college happened to be there and saw one of the machines,” Watson remembers. “They informed me that not only would I be getting thrown out of college, but the pawn shop was going to prosecute me for fraud.”

It wasn’t until he picked up a copy of Luke Rhinehart’s Dice Man that things finally began to fall into place. A story about a psychiatrist who, feeling bored an unfulfilled in life, starts making decisions based on a roll of the dice, the novel resonated deeply with Watson, and led to his exploration of authors like Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg.

“Then I got into Dylan, and that was a total earthquake,” says Ben. “Everything I thought I knew about writing songs or the idealism behind music changed. When I read the Dylan biography and realized that he had been turned onto great literature, I figured that’s probably what I needed.”

So with a roll of the dice, Watson enrolled in English literature courses at the local university. (By the time you read this, he will have graduated with first class honors.) The shift in focus soon found its way to his music. He wrote song after song, resuscitating old tunes he’d composed years prior and using his newfound influences to guide him through deeper, more uncharted waters.   

“When I was younger, I used to crave recognition for the sake of my own vanity, and I was disappointed again and again,” admits Watson. “Gradually the emphasis in my own mind shifted away from the more sensational aspects of ‘making a record’ and focused solely on creating something beautiful that will last forever in my own head, even if it fades in someone else’s.”

A potent dichotomy of youth, curiosity, humbleness, and practicality makes Ben Watson’s music introspective yet wildly defiant. From the renegade peacefulness of Tim Buckley to the tortured soulfulness of Nina Simone, his extraordinary vocal range soars over graceful guitar melodies expounding the tortured grace of emotional solitude and impossible love. “What about, Andy, if I keep singing and you can keep pulling drinks and grinning for all those well off, handsome Southern boys,” sings Watson on the sublime “Andy Says,” a “Fast Car” for the post-millennial generation. Meanwhile, the urgent “Keep A Hold On Me Sister” swings with Johnny Cash-like fervor, and pays homage to the rugged American folk rock so near and dear to Watson.

“Nothing’s definite with those kinds of songs,” says Watson of the style. “They allow us space to dream. We can’t say for example where they were recorded and who was present as we can with a modern song. They possess a mystery and a magic that I don’t hear in any other music.”

It’s that taste for simplicity and magic that makes Watson’s music so timeless. His voice exudes a confidence well beyond his 24 years, while his musicianship bubbles with the roused-up experimentalism of a young man sampling all different flavors and eras of modern music. Classic Seventies troubadour balladry coupled with heady, Northern blues and literary imagery give this album serious weight, and lend credence to the fact that Watson’s fledgling career is anything but a roll of the dice.

Words : Rich Thomas