For his fourth album, Oxfordshire’s most authentically American musician, Ags Connolly, takes a sidestep from his championing of “Ameripolitan” music (as named and championed by Dale Watson) for a deep delve into Texas. Connolly’s take on Texas is perhaps wider than the actual state but it certainly takes in its southern borders and tradition of miscegenation with Mexican music styles. He follows in the footsteps of luminaries such as Willie Nelson and Doug Sahm, both of whom have woven Tex-Mex sounds into their Texan tales.
While it’s the Maverick’s Michael Guerra’s accordion which provides much of the local colour, Billy Contreras on fiddle and Rob Updegraff’s excellent nylon stringed guitar playing are just as important. Topping it all, Connolly learned to play the Bajo Quinto, a ten stringed instrument which has long been an essential element of conjunto. Having assembled this Tejano crew, Connolly embarks on a collection of songs which truly roam across the various strands of what, for want of a better word, we’ll call Tex-Mex, and it turns out he’s a dab hand at it.
The album opens with Connolly in an autobiographical mood as he sings of the rootless vagaries of being a musician on the road and announcing his intention to head south for a while for inspiration. Strangely, for an opening number, it’s the least engaging of the songs on the album, perhaps an indication that Connolly was indeed needing a transfusion. He surely has been revived on the delightful polka sounds of Change My Mind which takes both him and the listener close to the border. There’s more of this on the excellent Senora (Whatever Comes First In Your Heart) which reminds one of the great Freddy Fender while Tell Me What You Were Gonna Tell Me skilfully transports a covid lockdown song to a Mexican cantina.
Other songs are less Tex-Mex in style, Overwhelmed is an excellent lachrymose waltz, the band limping along quite wonderfully as Connolly wallows in self pity, his pain reflected in the weeping fiddle. I Trust My Heart These Days and Turns Out both recall the Willie Nelson of Spirit and Teatro with Updegraff’s nylon guitar the primary link. Nelson also comes to mind on the one cover song here, Wes McGhee’s Half Forgotten Tunes. McGhee was a pioneer of UK based Americana and Connolly pays fine tribute to him on this sepia stained number suffused with nostalgia. The album ends with I’d Be Good For You, a slight return to the yearning of Overwhelmed with Connolly ever the erstwhile suitor. A grand close to a great album.