William Dean Watson

William Dean Watson is a retired academic, with a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge. For over thirty years, he taught Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto, with a special focus on law and mental health. Music has always been a parallel journey, and for over a decade he has been writing essays about American music and writing and recording songs in a range of historic American musical styles; old-time and folk, bluegrass and honky tonk, Cajun country and Western Swing, and the commercial ballads of Hollywood’s singing cowboys. The dramatic narratives characteristic of these genres provide links between William’s musical and academic interests, but his aim is always to remain true to the aural and lyrical values of the music he cherishes.

Like the music that inspires him, his songs bring out the complexities of human experience – moments of joy standing against the emotional tolls of painful situations and personal weaknesses – expressed in simple, everyday language. Rooted in these recognizable realities, William’s songs are a reverent celebration of established musical traditions that continue to influence and inform our appreciation of the possibilities that life, and music, provide us.

Join William on his journey through sounds from the past that will always speak to the soul, and the timeless stories they accompany.

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