AMBER WATTS AND THE CROSSROADS

Saturday March 26, 2022

@ Dewayne's Bar & Grill in Murfreesboro, TN

(Review by: Jeffrey Kurtis)

Nashville’s widely recognized for its Lower Broadway district; the area of town where country music’s tapestry meets neon lights and bachelorette parities run rampant amongst the packed weekend crowds of tourists that flood into Nashville for a quick getaway. 

However, where do you go to find great music when you’re a local?

It’s a little-known fact unless you live here in Middle Tennessee, but all the surrounding areas along the outskirts of Music City feature great live music and a local flavor in their hometown bars on any given Saturday night.

One such place is Dewayne’s Bar & Grill in nearby Murfreesboro, TN; a quintessential roadhouse dive that’s built on the foundations of support from the biker crowd and the personality that upholds the age-old adage of being a juke joint where everyone knows everybody, and no one is a stranger.

Tucked about half a mile back off the main road, the unassuming venue was packed with a solid Saturday night crowd who were about to witness an all-around entertainment driven performance from Amber Watts and The Crossroads that was equally amounts impressive as it was addicting.

4-hour marathon shows are commonplace in the Nashville area, but it takes a very special performer to be able to hold a crowd from the opening note until the last one is played. By craftily mixing up her set with a variety show type of feel that featured costume changes, guest performances from local rappers Idealist and RT3, and a spotlight that shined brightly on Watts’ bold showcase of the many layers that make her such an endearing artist, she was able to keep the crowd continually invested in her entire performance.

Having only seen Watts perform an acoustic set prior to this night, by having a full-band blasting behind her she presented an entirely different vibe and a high-octane energy level that allowed her to really let loose and perfectly fit her unbridled sass, personality, and attitude within a song selection that felt as if she masterfully manufactured it to match the feel and atmosphere of the venue and its crowd.

Though she did humbly step back at times to allow 13-year guitar prodigy Danny Garwood to shine, such as when he dropped Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way,” the Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There,” and The Black Crowes version of the Otis Redding classic “Hard To Handle,” this night was about Amber Watts and her putting on a clinic that introduced the mostly unsuspecting crowd to every corner of who she is as an all-around artist, songwriter, and entertainer.

Clad in a red corset covered by a black jacket with fringe dangling down from the sleeves, Watts stood behind a microphone that was wrapped in color-changing lights and immediately added a country class to the stage setup as she dove into her show with a cover of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” and captured the crowd’s attention as she injected her set with a healthy dose of sassiness that was as every bit attractive to the crowd as it was a complete showing of on-stage confidence exuberating from her personality. 

Watts kept the crowd in the palm of her hand as she played modern country covers including Eric Church’s “Drink In My Hand” and Maren Morris’ “My Church,” while she also showed how well she could read a crowd by allowing her classic rock influences to find their way into the mix through songs such as John Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good” and Pat Benatar’s “Hit My With Your Best Shot”; all while she set her onstage presence in motion by bopping around the front part of the stage and dancing and twisting her hips in rhythm with the catchy melodies.

However, it was the moments when she spliced in a couple of her very solid original songs that she truly intrigued the crowd in a much different way and brought them to the edge of their seats to listen more intently during “Mama’s Drinking Tonight” and “Gypsy Woman,” the latter which saw her donning a feathered masquerade mask which helped enhance the element of mystery surrounding the overall mood of the lyrics.

Watts changed into the same outfit worn in the show’s promo photo above for the second set, and she immediately had the crowd moving and dancing along with her as she delivered Shania Twain’s “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under,” which she quickly followed with a rollicking version of Hank Williams “Jambalaya” during which she bounced along the front of the stage in perfect timing with the kicked-up groove that her and her band spun into the familiar rhythm of the iconic song.

She again continued to slide into her classic rock side as she belted out the impactful “Me and Bobby McGee,” clearly feeling the song and making it her own through her powerful delivery of it, before paying homage to one her strongest influences - Freddie Mercury - when she closed the set by leading the crowd in a sing along of Queen’s “Fat Bottom Girls.”

But just as it was during her first set of the night, while everyone was absolutely eating up every song during her second set, it was when Watts filtered her originals into the mix that the crowd was once again brought to the edge of their seats, whether it was during the rockabilly titled country bop “Hillbilly Good Time Rhythm,” or with her planned next single release, “Trailer Park Cinderella”; a song in which she stated was written because “every little girl no matter where they come from deserves to be a princess.”

As it was said earlier, these 4-hour marathon shows take a very special performer to be able to hold the crowd from the opening note to when the final one is played, but as Watts emerged after a brief break between sets clad now in a black sparkled dress and blinged out boots, she dove into a rousing rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” and immediately woke the crowd back up and had them dancing along with the souped up version of the classic song, once again placing the crowd in the palm of her hand as she commanded the audience with her incredible energy.

She encouraged the couples to head out to the dance floor with the only really slow song of the night when she played her amazing original “Only Time Will Tell,” but with Garwood commanding the guitar licks, Watts and company mostly just threw caution to the wind and blasted through their last 45-minutes on the back of classic bar favorites  such as “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Can’t You See,” and “Johnny B. Goode.” 

These are always such interesting gigs to be a part of because they can really test an artist and cause them to either break or elevate their entertainment game. The crowds are usually only there for a short time to hang out at their local beer joint for a quick cold one, which means that the artist – in a sense - is always basically starting from scratch to try to win over the new people who saunter in throughout the night. But when an artist has that undeniable “it” factor, they then can control the movement of the crowd and engage them to the point that they stay put right where they’re at, which gives the artist the complete and total edge. 

That’s exactly what Amber Watts was able to accomplish.

By keeping most of the crowd in place throughout the entire night, she was able to continually win them over song by song. She first gave them healthy smatterings of what they already knew and loved and had them having a good time and singing along, before then knocking them out with her well-placed originals and solidifying herself as a true artist/songwriter that clearly knows when to turn up the entertainment wow factor of the performance, but more importantly, when to leave breathing room for her strong, honest lyrics to become the brightest star of the show. 

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