Aaron Watson

Singer-songwriter Aaron Watson grew up listening to country legends George Jones, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, but he didn’t start making his own music until college. ∙ He lived in a shuttered gas station while playing the Texas honky-tonk circuit and working on songs for his 1999 debut, Singer/Songwriter. ∙ Willie Nelson guested on the title track to 2004’s The Honky Tonk Kid, which Watson said was a career high point: “When I’m an old man, I can still say [he] sang on a song with me.” ∙ In 2015, The Underdog became the first self-released album by a male solo act to top Billboard’s Country Albums chart, and it hit No. 14 on the Billboard 200. ∙ “Outta Style,” his biggest hit to date, reached No. 24 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart in 2017.