Dale Watson Doing His Part To Save Town Lake

The old-fashioned songs Hand writes and sings — about heartache, hard luck, and hard-won redemption — certainly sound as if they were written before he was born. They’re all his, but you’d swear you can hear Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, and George Jones knocking around the lonely barrooms and locked back doors inside Hand’s mournful music. And it costs. “Every time I get up there to sing, part of me doesn’t come back,” he says. “If you don’t do that, you’re nothing but a charade.”

Hand gravitates towards the “dark side of things” and says that ninety percent of what he writes about he has suffered first hand.

One thing I’ve seen some fans say about you on message boards is that you’ve gotten too glamorous now.

Too glamorous? I’m wearing jeans with holes in them! Ask anyone in this building. Glamorous? Phhhfft. I mean, tell that person thank you, that’s a compliment, because I’ve never been called that before. Usually it’s like, ”Are you sure you’re not a man?” Because I belch and fart like a man, better than any of ‘em.