Lots of people write songs complaining about modern country music, but few are gutsy enough to name names. This was not a problem for Dale Watson,who cut a memorable version of “Nashville Rash” on his Live From London, England album in 2002. After lamenting that he’s “too country now for country, just like Johnny Cash” he gets to the heart of the matter: “Breaks my heart to see all my heroes fadin’ away/ And it breaks my heart to have to listen to Shania Twain.”

Thanks to songs like that one—and the same album’s even-more pointed “Country My Ass”—Watson now records for a folk label (Red House) and you’re not about to hear him on commercial radio. But the Austin-based singer/guitarist is more than a frustrated music critic: As a songwriter he’s true to the Bakersfield deities Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, which means he writes as many teary songs as smart-alecky ones. (He wrote a moving album’s worth of lowdown ballads after the death of his fiancée in 2001.) It also means there’s no Auto-Tune, arena drums or rock guitars on his albums; he even made a recent one at Sun Studios to get that vintage sound. But if your definition of a hit song is an instantly catchy one that makes a solid point in three minutes,then Watson’s written stacks of hits. His latest disc El Rancho Azul—recorded with longtime band the Lonestars—has no less than four songs with the word “drink” in the title (plus one each with “bar” and “tequila”) but only a couple of those are about partying; the rest are about crying into your drink. Make your own choice when Watson hits the Rock ‘N’ Bowl.