Americana folksinger turned Coen Brothers actor coming to The Burl

In his professional lifetime, Willie Watson has been a string-picking crow, a scholarly folksinger and an on-screen gunslinger. Above all that, though, the longstanding guitarist, banjoist, songsmith, vocalist and sometime actor has been a working musician going it alone.

Since departing the new generation, old-school-minded, double Grammy-winning Old Crow Medicine Show for a solo career, Watson has forged a rustic acoustic sound that owes generously to old-time music and the various folk, pre-bluegrass country and blues accents that gather at its core. He has occasionally played with a band (a 2024 performance at The Burl was with a trio), although most of his performances have had Watson delivering his refreshingly unadorned Americana music on his own. A return performance at The Burl on Monday returns him to solo artist status.

“Here’s the thing,” Watson said. “I’m able to get onstage alone and put on a full show — which honestly, not to talk myself up too much, not a lot of people can do. A lot of times when a musician who has maybe made a record with a band and has had more of a full sound gets up onstage by themselves, it doesn’t necessarily carry through for the whole show. It’s like people are listening to a demo tape onstage. They lose interest. I can do a lot better than that. I can make it more interesting and have a real impact. I hope people can see that.”

Watson’s solo career was established through two interpretive albums titled simply “Folksinger” (the first volume was released in 2014, the second followed three years later.) Combined, the recordings had Watson offering his take on roots music tunes by Leadbelly, Charley Jordan, Utah Phillips and Furry Lewis along with a host of traditional songs. Volume one was largely Watson working solo, while the second volume expanded the sound and personnel. Both records were produced by David Rawlings, in whose band (the Dave Rawlings Machine), Watson regularly toured with around his solo concert dates.

“I listen to the first ‘Folksinger’ record now and a lot of the singing bothers me and some of the playing bothers me. Then I have to realize that no matter what, with everything I’ve ever done, I’ve been truthful about it at the time. And 20 years later, whether that’s making me cringe or not, it’s still truthful.”

Watson’s original music finally surfaced on a 2024 self-titled album, a record that sported assistance from members of Punch Brothers and longtime Tom Petty keyboardist Benmont Tench. But the unvarnished, almost antique sound from the “Folksinger” albums remained.

“My last record? Yeah, it holds up as far as the songs go, but I don’t think any good artist has looked back at their work and been happy with it. That’s the only way that anybody is going to keep moving on to the next thing and keep developing and getting better. As long as I maintain some kind of beauty in there ... that’s all I’m going for. It’s to make a beautiful thing that has an impact. Anyone who calls themselves an artist, who looks back at their career and is like, ‘That record I made 10 years ago is awesome. I think I did a great job on it’ ... I probably wouldn’t want to listen to that artist.”

Between the “Folksinger” and “Willie Watson” albums something unexpected unfolded. Watson was enlisted by The Coen Brothers to sing and act in their 2018 anthology film, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” Watson was cast in the title segment as an Old West gunman who shoots down Scruggs, then sings a duet with him. That’s right — a duet where, in essence, his performance partner is dead. Rawlings and longtime partner Gillian Welch wrote the tune (“When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings”) that Watson’s character sings as he rides out of town on horseback and as Scruggs, played by Tim Blake Nelson, ascends to heaven,

“I didn’t audition for that or anything. It was just something that fell into my lap. It was like, ‘Of course, I’ll do that.’

“The Coen Brothers, they just get people that they know are going to be perfect for these roles. That was one of the reasons I decided to do it. It dawned on me that they must see something in me that’s right for this part. It’s the same with music. You get into a studio and it’s like, ‘Don’t hire somebody you have to tell how to play. They’ve got to know what to do.’ That just makes it easy and gives you the best results.

“People ask me sometimes, ‘Did the Coen Brothers give you any direction?’ The only thing Ethan (Coen) said was ‘Stop moving your head.’”

Watson acted in one other film after that, the 2022 romance Western “Redeeming Love” with director D.J. Caruso, although he hasn’t lobbied for additional movie work since. Curiously, what has been filling in time between his solo concerts has been renewed road work with Old Crow Medicine Show. When the band decided strip its music back to its original string band sound for shows devoted to full performances of the two albums that brought the group to prominence — 2004’s “O.C.M.S.” and 2006’s “Big Iron World” — Watson was invited to take part, as he was a key instrumental component to both records.

“When I first played with Old Crow Medicine Show, I wasn’t well-versed in old blues music or how those old blues players in the ’20s (the 1920s, that is) would play, so I had to figure out how to do some finger-picking on the guitar and just make the music behind the words support everything. That’s the best word I can think to describe it — ‘support,’ It didn’t have to be fancy. It didn’t have to be technical. It just had to move things along.

“I can get onstage now with Old Crow and be happy with all the music that gets played. And, yeah, it’s all stuff we did 25 years ago. But I haven’t done it for 25 years, so it feels really fresh and good to me. Maybe some of those guys are sick of a lot of those songs because they’ve still been doing them every night, but I’m thrilled to be back out there. And the audiences have been so welcoming and happy.

“Basically, I love the attention. I love getting attention. I love when the world seems like it’s revolving around me, Now, I think I know enough not to let that go to my head. But I’m not going to be afraid to admit that this feels really good.”

Willie Watson/William Matheny

When: April 13 at 8 p.m.

Where: The Burl, 375 Thompson Rd.

Tickets: $22

Online: theburlky.com