Darren Watson has been playing his unique brand of blues and rhythm & blues for almost three decades now. In that time he has led one of New Zealand's most successful blues showbands and shared stages with a pantheon of music legends including Jimmie Vaughan, Billy Boy Arnold, Koko Taylor, Robert Cray, Doctor John, George Thorogood, Emmylou Harris, Eric Burdon, Tony Joe White, Keb Mo, & Mavis Staples' guitarist Rick Holmstrom to name a few.
He has received numerous national and international awards for his skills as a live performer, his original songwriting voice, and a for a slew of influential self-produced albums, garnering NZ Music Award nominations, and even picking up the Best Blues Song award at the prestigious International Songwriting Competition in Nashville.
More recently, in August 2014 Watson released a single called Planet Key, a song satirising the current Prime Minister of New Zealand. It was hugely popular online with an accompanying video. The song got to over 100,000 views within a week and reached #5 on the NZ Top 20 Singles Chart before the NZ Electoral Commission advised that the song was not able to be broadcast or sold without risking prosecution. Darren has challenged the advice in the High Court. At the time of writing, some six months later, the judge has still not ruled on the song's legal status.
Darren's most recent full-length album Introducing Darren Watson was released on November 7, 2014. It entered the Official NZ Artist Album Charts at #6.
A new single is due any day. As a solo performer or with his band Darren Watson is a live tour de force.
