On the edge of launching his debut, most artists play it safe. Dale Watson did the opposite, taking a loud, public swing at the very center of his own industry. He later wrote a concept album about long-haul trucking and, rather than imagine the road from a studio, enrolled in truck driving school, earned a commercial license, and drove his own tour bus.

When mainstream music had no place for his hard-edged honky-tonk, Watson refused to bend and simply built his own lane, coining Ameripolitan to define and celebrate the traditional sounds Nashville had abandoned. This episode is a portrait of one of country's most stubbornly independent figures and the rebellion he turned into a movement.

• Taking public aim at the Nashville establishment
• The trucking concept album and a real CDL to back it up
• Rejecting the modern i ...