Dale Watson and His Lone Stars - The Truckin' Sessions Trilogy (2014) Lossless

Lord knows there’s a lotta truckin’ songs in the classic country cannon, but it takes a true believer — some might say fanatic — of the genre to compile three discs’ worth of original classic truckin’ songs. Climb into the cab of Dale Watson’s The Truckin’ Sessions Trilogy, which hitches 1998’s The Truckin’ Sessions to 2009’s Vol. 2 and throws in a brand new Vol. 3 for good measure, and you can’t help but marvel at the self-styled “Ameripolitan” artist’s long-haul commitment to his diesel-fumed muse. Sure, the three discs are pretty much indistinguishable from one another, each a jukebox shuffle of tradition-grounded honky-tonkers about truckers, truck stops, trucks barreling down the highway and trucks broken down on the side of the road. Reinventing the proverbial wheel has never been Watson’s agenda. But the fact that the Telecaster licks are just as hot (especially on the Jerry Reed-worthy “Lugnut Larry”), the puns just as fun (“It’s Been a Long Truckin’ Day,” “Phillip at the Station”), and Watson’s enthusiasm just as caffeinated all the way through Vol. 3 as on the first two volumes proves just how quailed to the proverbial “T” he is for the job. — RICHARD SKANSE