There’s no pop-music style more anachronistic than country & western truck-driving tunes. Despite the well-intended efforts of small big-rig labels like Diesel Only, when it comes to songs about 18-wheelers and the open road, authenticity isn’t overrated. Dale Watson is a totally legit heir to kings of the road like Dave Dudley. Selected from three albums Watson recorded in Austin between 1995 and 1997, Best of the HighTone Years highlights the high beams and lowlife’s of a "Truckin’ Man." Watson freshens the cliché’s that define trucker country. His model is Merle, and on "You Lie" he sounds just as Haggard. In the pedal-steel delirium of "Caught," everyone knows what goes on behind cheap-motel doors, but that doesn’t keep him, two songs later, from the joyful anticipation of a "Cheatin’ Heart Attack." Keeping the myths alive, "The Honky-Tonkiest Beer Joint" sounds like such a friendly place that a gay wedding would be just as welcome as a visit from Johnny Cash. Speaking of Big John, he’s a looming spirit in Watson’s novelty "Nashville Rash," an ailment suffered by all those old-timers (Cash, anybody named Merle, Lefty, or Waylon) whose music remains vital while their careers are toast at country radio. But this is no time for a "Pity Party," as one song goes: Dale Watson’s here to give that old rig a jumpstart.