Gene Watson Biography
Gene Watson (Gary Gene Watson) an American country singer. He was born on October 11, 1943 in Palestine, Texas.
Gene Watson Age
Gene was born on October 11, 1943, in Palestine, Texas.
Gene Watson Career
Gene settled in Houston, TX, and started performing in the big Houston nightclubs while operating as a paint and body man throughout the day. He earned a strong local audience with his stage act and it was in Houston where he released his première single on Sun Valley Records.
The single “If It Was That Easy” never charted but as he states “it was just exciting to see my name on a record release and to believe that I was really in the business”. The Grand Ole Opry duo, The Wilburn Brothers, took Gene on the road briefly in 1964. It was The Wilburn Brothers that took him to Nashville for the very first time and left him to sing on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry.
He notes “I sang the Hank Williams song ‘I Can’t Help It if I’m Still in Love With You’ and earned a standing ovation so not understanding what to follow with I just went out and did a gospel standard ‘It Is No Secret What God Can Do’. Later, they took him to the Ernest Tubb Record Shop and he got on stage and broadcast on The Midnight Jamboree. Then it was back to the Texas honky-tonks and a string of local singles during the ‘60s.
In 1974, one of Watson’s small-label singles reached the ear of Capitol Records. He had an auto-body repairman and the featured singer at Houston’s Dynasty nightclub when Capitol Records picked up the steamy, sexual waltz “Love in the Hot Afternoon” for national distribution. It became the first of Watson’s two-dozen top-10 hits in early 1975.
He later decided to stop drinking in 1980 and discontinue smoking not long after that. He had a surgery and survived colon cancer in 2000-01. Through it all, he continued to record one critically acclaimed collection after another. Watson was enlisted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame in 2002 and later into the inaugural class of the Houston, Texas Music Hall of Fame in 2013.
Gene Watson Family
Watson has not shared information about his family with the public. We will update this section as soon as he shares it out.
Gene Watson Wife and Children
Watson married Mattie Louise Bivins in January 1961 when he was 17 and she was 15 years old. The pair have a grown son and daughter.