After World War I he moved to the city of Belmont, North Carolina where he worked as a weaver in textile factories.
Having learned several instruments including banjo, fiddle, guitar, dobro, autoharp, harmonica, musical saw and drums he became a semi-professional musician around 1921 and made his first recordings in January or February 1927 as a duo with local guitarist Charlie Wilson (1900–?)
This time Wilson was replaced on steel guitar by Palmer Rhyne (1904–1967), a fellow factory worker friend of Watts.
In his lyrical themes (at least in his recorded works) Watts largely avoided traditional folk songs and focused on more modern themes ranging from blues to a few political protest songs usually in a mocking vein similar to those of songwriter Joe Hill collected in the "Little Red Songbook" of the I.W.W.
The only photo of Watts commonly known (showing him holding a fiddle rather than his usual banjo) was reproduced by the artist R. Crumb for a collection of trading cards of old time country musicians.