DALE WATSON:
Although born in Alabama, Dale Watson is as Texas as the Panhandle or a smokey plate of BBQ. He came to country music early and naturally. His truck driving father moonlighted as a country singer, and his older brothers had bands as well. Dale remembers receiving his first guitar at age 7 and starting to write songs shortly after—“the same stuff I’m writing about now,” he says with a laugh.
A man with more than one life’s experience under his belt, he has entertained crowds all over the world, including recent appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and PBS’s long-running Austin City Limits. Dale has been inducted in the Austin Music Hall of Fame and even founded his own genre of music, Ameripolitan.
Seriously, how many people can say that Willie Nelson is their biggest fan? Check out Dale Watson’s interview here with Neil Ferguson’s No Depression about his Ameripolitan Music Awards.
JOHN R. MILLER:
John R Miller grew up in Hedgesville, a small town in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia where the mountains meet Interstate 81. A co-founding member of hard-traveling bands The Fox Hunt and Prison Book Club, and carrying a unique-but-familiar blend of country blues & folk, he has performed music in nearly all 50 states, Canada, Ireland, the UK, Japan, and much of Europe. He has twice appeared on NPR's Mountain Stage with The Fox Hunt, and as a bassist he has performed and toured extensively with the Hackensaw Boys, Locust Honey, William Matheny & the Strange Constellations, and many others. He has also been a featured songwriter and performer on the Travelin' Appalachians Revue. John can often be found performing solo, alongside fiddle player Chloe Edmonstone, or with his band The Engine Lights. New album is due in Spring 2018 on Emperor Records.