Ags Connolly

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Ags Connolly, from Oxford, released one of the finest country albums of last year with How About Now. Recorded outside of Edinburgh with producer Dean Owens and a fine cast of Scottish musicians (Stuart Nisbett, Kev McGuire, Jim McDermott, Andy May and Roddy Neilson) who sounded as if they were straight off the bus from Austin Texas, the album led to one reviewer calling Connolly “England’s Willie Nelson.” Connolly made his debut appearance in Glasgow last week and was kind enough to meet with Blabber’n’Smoke for a pre show beer and a chat. We started off by asking him about his recent trip to the Ameripolitan Awards in Austin.
Yeah I went out there. I spent ten days in Austin, three days in Albuquerque and I was supposed to spend five days in Nashville but because the weather was so bad flights were delayed so I missed two of the five days I was supposed to be in Nashville and that included the gig I was due to play at the Five Spot. There were loads of people supposed to come down. Will Kimbrough, Luke Bell, Pokey LaFarge and Ryan Koenig. It was a real shame. Flights were cancelled and delayed so it just didn’t happen.
The Ameripolitan Awards in Austin were great; I wrote a review of it for Country Music People. It was a great experience. I’m a recognised Ameripolitan artist but I wasn’t nominated or anything but it was just great to meet people. They didn’t know who I was at first, just the British guy hanging around but by the end of it they did saying “oh, I listened to your music” or whatever. I mean it just gives you sort of extra exposure, you know that networking thing that I’m never really good at but in that environment it was easy to do. I played a gig at the Rattle Inn and James Hand came in to watch the show just after he’d finished playing up the street at The Hole In The Wall. I’d just finished playing my song I Saw James Hand so I had to apologise to the audience and started playing it again. We caught up with each other after the show and we’re looking at ways of getting James over here to do a tour with me.
As for Nashville, well I’ve been to Austin loads of times but never Nashville so I did as much of the touristy bit as I could in the three days I had left, The Ryman Auditorium, The Cash Museum. And I saw the good and the bad side of Broadway, a lot of fairly rubbish covers bands but there are places that still have good traditional stuff and I met some really good people, just a shame I didn’t get to play the gig there.
Did you play in Albuquerque?
I was seeing family I have there, It’s a nice place, somewhat isolated and of course where they filmed Breaking Bad. I didn’t do the official Breaking Bad tour but my brother took me to a few of the places, actually better than the official tour which doesn’t go everywhere. It was pretty cool seeing the actual places but a lot of them are people’s houses so you can’t really hang around. I did one show there with Wildewood, a local band who’ve toured with The Handsome Family. It was a great little gig, held in a place that only opened for the show, opened at 8, closed at 11, but a great night.
And how has the album been doing?
It’s done well, been really well reviewed but as always it could do some more exposure. We’re going to release How About Now as a single in May to see if we can give it another push. It’s been out for about a year now so the next thing is to think about the second album and I’d like to do it up here again at Castlesound in Pentcaitland, the place was so good and all the musicians were so great.
There was a vinyl edition released
Yeah and I’ve got some with me tonight, I don’t always remember to bring them but it’s good to have them at shows because you never know who’s going to turn up and buy one. But it’s a great thing to have, it’s one of the things I’m most proud of, that record. It’s all my own thing and there’s a big picture of me on it, beautiful. My mum and dad threw out their record player years ago but my mum bought a record player because I had the vinyl out. It’s a lovely thing to have and that’s why we did it, a lot of people were asking if there was a vinyl edition so we printed up 500 of them.
What got you into country music?
I don’t really know. My dad’s not into country music, I listened to rock as a kid then I got into singer songwriters and that eventually led me to country. Bands like CSNY and the Byrds, I mean I like their albums and I listen to them but they’re not like core influences for me. I preferred writers like Leonard Cohen and Loudon Wainwright III, he’s my favourite songwriter. Some people think Gram Parsons is the essence but for me he’s the beginning, you should branch out and see why he did what he did. I’ve always had this thing where if someone references an artist or covers a song I’ve got to go and check them out. I bought a Hank Williams album before I had a clue what country music was as so many people talked about him as an influence. I loved it, not because it was country but because I really liked simple songwriting, again, like Loudon Wainwright or Ron Sexsmith, people like that and I thought there must be more of this simple songwriting and I found it in country music. It’s the home of it. I don’t mean stuff that’s really easy to write, in fact it’s really difficult to write it and make it sound really simple, that’s the genius of it.
Yeah, Hank Wangford says that when he was a rock’n’roll doctor in the late sixties he treated Gram Parsons who came into his surgery with a George Jones and Tammy Wynette album under his arm. Intrigued Hank listened to Jones and it turned his life around.
Yeah. Funny, I was talking to Hank a few weeks ago, he’s touring small villages, and I was talking to him. I gave him a copy of my album so it’s gone full circle for him from Gram to George to having an Ags Connolly record!
What are your plans for the future?
I’ll be touring with Jack Grelle in September in the UK and I’m really looking forward to that and then we’re hoping then to tour together in the States next year, that will be really cool. Jack tours around all over the States and for someone like me that would be a great experience. We’re also looking at maybe playing some dates in Italy and Croatia if we can set them up.
There seems to be an audience for Americana type music in Italy and Croatia and the like.
Yeah, Dale Watson has played a couple of festivals over there and I’ve got a couple of fans in Croatia actually, I think the internet makes it a lot easier for them to hear things.

Ags tour dates are here including some shows he’s doing with Cale Tyson on 23rd April and 9th May.

Ags Connolly. The Star Folk Club/The Fallen Angels Club. The Admiral Bar, Glasgow. Tuesday 14th April.

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Listening to Oxfordshire’s Ags Connolly’s debut album, How About Now, you would swear that he was born and raised in some US Southern State. On his first visit to Glasgow this notion was dispelled the moment he spoke and his chipper English accent was there for all to hear. A curious duality perhaps but rather than sing his excellent tales with his own voice (and if so in danger of coming across like a serious Adge Cutler) Connolly has immersed himself in country music, in particular the burgeoning Ameripolitan movement, and with his adoption of the genre’s musical style he’s seen fit to adopt the vocal mannerism’s of his heroes. It’s certainly a winning decision as borne out by the rave reviews the album and his live shows have gathered with Country Music People magazine declaring “Connolly is the closest we’ve ever come to an English Willie Nelson.”
An imposing figure with a natty Nashville shirt, Connolly delivered his songs of loss and woe, shaped and comforted by the demon drink, with a fine emotional thump and such conviction that  the audience were transported to Nashville’s Music Row. A Good Memory For Pain was an instantly memorable number that recalled George Jones, a thought that was reinforced by the tear jerking That’s The Last Time. On record That’s The Last Time is perfectly played by the band assembled by Edinburgh’s Dean Owens who produced the album. Live, Connolly dredged all the emotional depths of the album version with his heartworn voice and simple guitar accompaniment. Even more heartrending was his masterful rendition of She Doesn’t Need Anyone Anymore, a real tears in your beer moment but the emotional highpoint (or low point perhaps) came towards the end of the set when Connolly sang the powerful Get Out Of My Mind, his voice as rich as Charlie Rich’s was.
Elsewhere Connolly name checked his influences on the sturdy manifesto that is When Country Was Proud before describing his recent visit to Nashville where he met one of his heroes, the subject of his song, I Saw James Hand. Hand apparently arrived just as Connolly had sang the song leading him to confuse the audience by promptly singing it again. Of course Connolly played the song tonight and followed it with a fine rendition of Hand’s song, Over There, That’s Frank, a magnificently boozy honky tonk lament. Scattered through the set covers of Johnny Paycheck’s Slide Off Your Satin Sheets and Shel Silverstein’s Jennifer Johnson And Me demonstrated Connolly’s mining of country’s rich seams and with several new songs unveiled that match the quality of those he’s already recorded it seems that Connolly might just be the UK’s best country act about today.

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The Star Folk Club

The Fallen Angels Club

Best of 2014

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There’s a lot or pros and cons when it comes to listing end of year best ofs or favourites. Two years ago Blabber’n’Smoke eventually plumbed for the pros outweighing the cons so this is the third time we’ve presented what, when it comes down to it, is an arbitrary choice of remembered listen. Albums that have stood the test of (a relatively short) time, the ones we’ve returned to or recommended to others in the pub. Above all it’s been fun to look back, read the reviews and see if they still stand. So with this in mind the following are the official Blabber’n’Smoke 2014 picks, in alphabetical order.

Blue Rose Code. Ballads Of Peckham Rye
Birds Of Chicago. Live From Space
Fire Mountain. All Dies Down
Bradford lee Folk and The Bluegrass Playboys. Somewhere Far Away
Cahalen Morrison & Eli West. I’ll Swing My Hammer With Both My Hands
Jim Keaveny. Out Of Time
Parker Millsap. Parker Millsap
Michael Rank & Stag. Deadstock
Sturgill Simpson. Metamodern Sounds In Country Music
John Southworth. Niagara

Random honourable mentions go to

Lucinda Williams Down Where the Spirit Meets The Bone,
The Johnny Cash Native American album reboot, Look Again To The Wind,
Danny and The Champions Of The World’s Live Champs!
Dan Michealson & The Coastguards Distance
Cale Tyson’s EP, High On Lonesome,
Luke Tuchsherer’s debut You Get So Alone at Times It makes Sense,
Petunia’s Inside Of You,
Ags Connolly How about Now,
Chris Cacavas & Edward Abbiati. Me And The Devil along with Abbiati’s band Lowlands who delivered the excellent Love Etc.,
Zoe Muth. World Of Strangers,
Hank Wangford & The Lost Cowboys. Save Me The Waltz .
Grant Peeples and the Peeples Rebublic. Punishing The Myth.
Simone Felice. Strangers.
Bronwynne Brent. Stardust.
Sylvie Simmons. Sylvie (allowing an honorary mention here for Howe Gelb who produced).
The War On Drugs. Lost In The Dream.
Lynne Hanson. River Of Sand.
Gal Holiday & The Honky Tonk Revue. Last To Leave.
And finally John Murry’s EP, Califorlonia which is brilliant and hopefully just an appetiser for his follow up to the majestic Graceless Age.

Digging through the archives it’s been noticeable that there’s been a fine contribution this year from Scottish acts who dip into or draw from an Americana well to a greater or lesser extent. While Blue Rose Code’s Ballads Of Peckam Rye features above the following are all stellar contributions to the local scene.

Dropkick. Homeward
Dumb Instrument. The Silent Beard (with the Scottish song of the year, Suffering from Scottishness).
John Hinshelwood. Lowering The Tone.
The David Latto Band. Here Today, Ghost Tomorrow EP
Norrie McCulloch. Old Lovers Junkyard
The New Madrids. Through the Heart of Town.
Red Pine Timber Company. Different Lonesome
The Rulers Of The Root. Porky Dreams
Ten Gallon Bratz. Tales From The Long Shadows

Although his album, Little Glass Box came out in 2012, Fraser Anderson is a major find of the year while another local lad, Daniel Meade unleashes his Nashville recorded Keep Right Away in January. Hopefully folk will have long enough memories to recall this when it comes to compiling the 2015 lists. In the meantime it can be first on the New Year shopping list.

Ags Connolly. How About Now. Drumfire Records

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They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, perhaps the same is true for an album but West Oxfordshire’s Ags Connolly certainly lays out his stall on the cover of How About Now. Connolly is pictured, solitary, in a bar with a lonesome bottle of Lone Star beer in front of him as he stares at a woman leaving. The bar is decorated with posters of honky tonk heroes including Waylon and Willie along with Hank Snow, Johnny Paycheck and Davis Allan Coe. Unsurprisingly when you get to the music it’s a fine collection of beer and tear stained songs with a nice big dollop of twang to go with it.

Connolly describes himself as an “Ameripolitan” musician, a term coined we think by Dale Watson who felt that “country music” has been co-opted and irreversibly corrupted by Music Row in Nashville. There’s now an Ameripolitan Awards scheme which sets out its mission quite firmly here . Suffice to say that Connolly sings country music that is firmly rooted in the old tradition with no trace of big hats, AOR rock or autotune in his voice. From the start of the album he again sets out that old stall of his with the mighty proclamation, When Country Was Proud, which celebrates Johnny Paycheck’s The Little Darlin’ Years and name checks many of the outlaws pictured on the album cover. It’s a cracking song with curling pedal steel, saloon piano and big thick creamy guitars while Connolly’s voice bears comparison with the likes of Jennings.

Connolly racks up winner after winner on the songs that follow with several hard edged rockabilly and honky tonk numbers including I saw James Hand (another nod to one of his heroes) and The Dim and Distant Past where the band whip up a real humbuckin’ storm with some great piano on the outro. He’s equally at home on the sad sack laments of She Doesn’t Need Anyone Anymore and That’s The Last Time wringing out the emotion for all it’s worth. He’s ably supported throughout the album (which he recorded in Edinburgh with Dean Owens in the producer’s chair) by Kev McGuire on double bass , Jim McDermott, drums and Andy May on keyboards while Stuart Nisbet is superb on electric and pedal steel guitars. Connolly was excellent when he appeared recently at Perth’s Southern fried Festival and he returns to Scotland for a shows in Edinburgh and Aberdeen in October.

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