Unwanted is the latest studio album from Texas-born honky-tonk legend Dale Watson, released on April 24, 2026, via Forty Below Records — his first new material since 2023's Starvation Box and the first release under a new multi-album deal with the Los Angeles-based independent label. All 12 tracks were entirely written and produced by Watson himself, recorded across two of his spiritual homes: Austin, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee. The album features two distinct backing ensembles: The Lonestars — Zack Sapunor on bass, Don Pawlak on pedal steel, and Manny Pagan on drums — handling most of the record, with The Memphians (T. Jarrod Bonta on piano, Carl Caspersen on bass, and Danny Banks on drums) appearing on select tracks. Additional contributions come from fiddler Katie Shore, pianist Matt Hubbard, and Watson's wife and fellow performer Celine Lee, who duets with him on "You've Got My Heart." As Forty Below Records describes it, the album is "the sound of an Ameripolitan diehard with plenty of life left in the tank, speeding toward a horizon of his own making."Across its 36-minute runtime, Unwanted moves with characteristic confidence between hard-charging honky-tonk barn-burners, tender ballads, western swing, and rockabilly — the signature Ameripolitan blend Watson has championed for four decades. The album opens with the galloping "Willie Waylon and Whiskey," a tribute to outlaw country's holy trinity that sets the pace immediately, and proceeds through highlights including the gorgeous ballad "If You Really Love Me (Outlive Me)," the boot-shuffling preservationist anthem "Don't Let the Honky Tonks Go," the punchy rocker "What the Hell Happened to the Cadillac" (a reworked and, according to Saving Country Music, now definitive version of a track from Starvation Box), and the wistful closer "Life is Like a Song." No Depression calls it "vintage Dale Watson," praising his "gruff, booming voice" and his ability to careen between tenderness and raucousness without missing a step, while Saving Country Music awarded it an 8/10 — a strong entry in a catalog that shows no signs of slowing down.
