Dale Watson sums it up best with an old saying, "If you want to make God laugh, make plans." After recovering from a personal tragedy that resulted in a stint at a state mental facility, the Austin-based country traditionalist had planned on drastically scaling back his career, maybe even quitting music altogether.

Why?

His children - ages 13 and 7 - had moved with his ex-wife from Texas to Maryland, which proved problematic for the singer-songwriter.

"I wanted to be around my kids more, and the music was getting in the way of that," he explains from his Maryland residence. "I was in a catch-22 situation where I had to work a lot to be able to afford to fly and be around 'em. But then, whenever I took off to be around 'em, I couldn't afford to come back and do it again."

Watson prayed about the problem. Then, just as he resigned himself to taking on a regular day job in the Baltimore area, things began to pop.

"Palo Duro came in and signed for a new record ('Whiskey or God'), the movie 'Austin Angel' came up, and the documentary ('Crazy Again') was done and finished. And, Continental Airlines stepped in. Working with them through the Blue Harbor Association - which helps mental illness awareness - they stepped up and gave me free tickets once a month to see my kids. So, they made it possible for me to still live in Austin, Texas and then fly here once a month and still do my career. So, it's amazing how everything just fell together."

Ironically, Watson's children don't know that their father is one of country music's most highly regarded honky tonkers.

"They know I sing," he laughs, "but I don't know if they know what all I do. Every now and then, they see my face on the TV or in the newspaper. I don't think they really think about it that much."

Known as a staunch defender of traditional country, the Alabama-born Watson turned pro at 15, playing Texas beer joints with his brother Jim in an aggregation called the Classic Country Band.

"My influences were what my father's were," he recalls. "When he played his records - every Sunday morning, we'd wake up to the sound of him playing his lead guitar to the radio or some of the records he had - like ol' Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams, George Jones - stuff like that."

A prolific songwriter and modern day master of the Bakersfield sound, Watson blanches at the notion that he is merely a retro artist.

"That's been the hardest thing to convey to people about my music. I like to tell them that it's in the vein of Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Johnny Cash, Bob Wills type stuff. But it's new music. It's just about issues that are pertinent to me and to life today. It's a new house built with an old blueprint."

Many of those influences can be found on Watson's new disc for Palo Duro, "Whiskey or God."

"No Help Wanted" displays the Buck Owens stamp; "I Ain't Been Right, Since I've Been Left" cooks with Doug Kershaw's Cajun beat; the pedal steel intro on "My Heart is Yours" recalls the '70's peak of Gary Stewart.

"Yes, thank you," acknowledges the singer. "I love Gary Stewart's music. He was pretty much king of the honky tonks when I was growing up. My steel guitar player Don Pawlak was influenced by that, no doubt. I told him when he made up that intro lick, I said, 'Man, that's really Gary Stewart's sound. Go with that. Make it more so.'"

Watson also employs the comedic influences of Jerry Reed and Ray Stevens on "Truckin' Queen," which he says is based on a real person.

"I've never seen the guy," he chuckles. "We've only heard him on the radio. Back in 1997, this guy would dominate channel 19 on CB radio in Oklahoma City. That's all you heard when you went through Oklahoma City was this guy saying, 'I've got my nightgown on and pretty red panties on, and I'll be ready to go in a minute.' You couldn't get away from him because he had a power-mic, and it was on a loop. This went on for years. I think the last time I heard it was in 2003. So, he was wanted by the FCC and everybody, and they'd turn off the radio when he went through Oklahoma City. I've never seen him, so with the song I embellished what I thought he looked like."

Most the songs were more or less improvised on stage. A few were written during the most emotionally harrowing point in Watson's life.

"Well, 'Darlin' Look at Me Now,' I wrote that when I was actually in Austin State Hospital," says Watson. "If people don't know, that's the local nuthouse. That's my terminology for that type of place. But it's a great place, and they helped me out a whole lot, so I'm not trying to knock 'em. But I wrote that one while I was there, and that's how I ended up there is over the loss of a girlfriend who died in a car wreck. It took two years of grief to finally put me into there. 'I Wish I Was Crazy Again' talks about when I was in that state. I was thinking that I was able to hear and talk to my girlfriend. So, I was nuts, but I was really happy because I was reunited with her."

Watson's girlfriend, Terri Lynn Herbert, an attorney in the Texas State Attorney General's office, died in an automobile accident on Sept. 15, 2000. "Me and Terri had only been in a relationship four months," he states before observing, "It's amazing how little time it takes to build something."

The aftershocks of Herbert's death sent the singer into a spiritual tailspin. "I went and searched out psychics and did the Tarot cards, and then I turned to the Ouija Board, and the Ouija Board took me to a whole different thing, and it turned into automatic writing, and then I started hearing the voice of my girlfriend," he recalls. "It had turned my girlfriend into a spirit guide. I got into all this New Age thinking, which nobody would think that somebody like me would of. But I did. And I found a lot of comfort in it."

"That's the part that was beautiful. Then it turned into a more religious thing, talking to Jesus. When you're sitting there thinking you're walking and talking with Jesus Christ, that's a pretty beautiful place to be. That's where I thought I was. I didn't want to leave that. But then, this thing - the voice - turned into something else. It said, 'You turned to me in the Ouija board, and you didn't hear your girlfriend, your spirit guide, or Jesus - you heard me, Satan. Then it turned bad. In that regard, I'm glad I'm out of that. But for a while there, it was euphoria."

After a suicide attempt and a brief stint in a mental facility, Watson delivered on a promise he had made to God.

"I had made a deal," he says. "If I could snap out of this stuff, I'd make a gospel album and write a book about what I went through."

One of those promises will be fulfilled by the upcoming book "A Deal with the Devil to Get Her Back," out sometime next year. "This came out of me really fast, and some of it was still under the influence of whatever my mental state was at that time," he says of the book. "I had just got out of the nut house. It's taken a little over a year to take this manuscript and pick it apart. I'm able to step back and have the clarity without the cloudiness of the grief. I'm able to look at stuff a little more objectively."

Interest in his manuscript also led to a leading role in producer/director Zalman King's upcoming film "Austin Angel."

King "was looking for a lead actor for this country musical called 'Austin Angel,'" explains Watson. "It's the story about a guy who sells his soul to the devil to save his daughter. It's a musical in every aspect. When they were looking for somebody, (Asleep at the Wheel's) Ray Benson suggested me because they wanted Ray to produce the music. This was about three years ago. A year went by, and they went out on the road with me - Zalman and his partner Rod Harris who wrote the play - and I started to tell them what I just came out of. I had written a manuscript on that, and he said, 'Well, I'd like to see it.'" Struck by the similarities between Watson's personal story and their movie script, they enlisted him for the movie's lead role.

Progress on the film has been delayed by "scheduling, red tape here and there, lawyers stuff like that." More footage will be shot later this year, and David Carradine has signed on to play the devil.

"In the meantime," reports Watson. "Zalman King had a lot of extra footage, and he approached me about doing a docudrama on what I went through in 2002. He was going to use a lot of the b-footage and then shoot some more stuff. So, I agree to it, and the documentary 'Crazy Again' was made pretty quickly."

Asked if it felt odd to see his personal turmoil spill out on screen Watson replies, "Yeah, it's pretty uncomfortable. It's like being naked. But I'm really glad it was made because afterwards I've had people come up with tears in their eyes because they've been through something similar. I think that's the lesson in life. Nothing we go through do we go through alone."

"Crazy Again" has already premiered at the Austin Film Festival and will be booked in art-film venues nationally. This June, the 42-year-old honky-tonker will tour the Midwest before returning to work on "Austin Angel."

Yet one question remains. Did Watson ever resolve the crisis of faith addressed by his new album's title track "Whiskey or God?"

"Absolutely," he crows triumphantly. "That's one of the things I prayed about too. 'Hey, if this is what I'm meant to do, then step in, and help me do it.' And, He did. I was on my way out of this business, and the man upstairs changed things. So, I'm not trying to go against the grain anymore. I've gotten so much response from people about what I do, I just feel like I'm not going to be fighting God's will anymore. I'll just do what I do, and let it all sort out."