An unlikely combination perhaps of the alt-country veteran Hank Wangford and Noel Dashwood (of Alden Patterson Dashwood), who is more associated with the folk scene, but they’ve been working as a guitar and dobro duo for a couple of years. Promises Promises comes from their second attempt at making an album, the first being scuppered by social distancing and Noel’s Covid chest. With Wangford on lead, guitar and uke and Dashwood on harmonies, bass, dobro, harmonica and lap steel, it’s a generally relaxed affair that, divided between toe-tappers and heartbreakers, takes a gentle cruise through swing, a touch of jazz, old time honky tonk and Hawaiian country. All but two are Wangford solo originals, opening up with the Tiki-lounge sway of The Way Of The World, the breezy tune offsetting a jaundiced lyric musing about how life regularly pulls the carpet from under you and the joys of getting older with aching bones, though love might carry you through.
Riding a Johnny Cash scuffling rhythm, dobro a go go, Oil (Black Gold) is a jaunty number about weaning ourselves off our reliance on oil – and as such, our being held to ransom by its suppliers – in a world that’s “just oyster with a gearbox for a heart”, namechecking oil extortionists Putin and the Sheik of Abu Dhabi as it bounces along. Written while feeling pissed off with lockdown, Jump In A River is rather less about going for a swim and more about how psychedelics aren’t just for when you’re young and are great at helping deal with addiction and fears of death. Given that Wangford used to be a doctor in his civilian life as Sam Hutt (clients included The Who, Grateful Dead and the Stones, all of whom would have been well-versed in such), I’ll take his word for it.
He breaks out the ukulele for the slower, jazzier Tin Pan Alley era swing My Love Is Gone, which, as you might surmise, is about loss, here that of those first flushes of innocence when reality kicks in. Originally featured on Wangford’s 1977 album Wake Up Dead, a co-write with Reg Meuross, Simple Pleasures, about longing for a life without its complications (“you want it tender but it turns out tough”), still has that mountain music front porch gospel lightness to its step and sway. The first half finishes up in a lyrically playful style with the redneck yee haw rhythm and philosophy of Fingers where, punctuated by a dobro breakdown, he declares, “the only thing I count on is my fingers/The only thing I bet on is my ass”.
It’s over then to the tears and beers honky tonk for the second serving, the first pouring of which harks back to his 1980 debut with Slippin’ Whisky, a time back when he’d been working with immigrant and indigenous patients in Saskatchewan, a song about lost love getting drunk and waiting for a train to leave the heartaches behind. Trying to find a way to tell someone your relationship’s reached the end of the line underpins the ghostly lap steel weeping slow waltzer Let Her Go, reaming in a tear-stained territory for a terrific faithful cover of Conway Twitty’s 1968 hit Image Of Me to which he was introduced during his friendship with Gram Parsons.
Returning to his own work, the penultimate Something In The Air is more in the mode of dreamy old school Nashville with a lingering legacy of hippie beliefs that “love can be the golden rule”, Noel offering another simple but lovely dobro solo before the infectious waltzing swayalong title rack winds it up with another cynical number about how declarations of love are just a precursor for the subsequent lies and broken vows, fading away just as the track itself does. With the sleeve note annotations to the songs as well as a potted history of the dobro in country music, this an absolute delight and if there was a UK version of the Country Hall Of Fame, a perfect reason why both of them should be inducted.
Album Launch Dates
Wangford Big Bass Combo with Noel Dashwood
Friday 15th December
North London launch at Green Note Camden
Tickets: HERE
Hank Wangford and the Lost Cowboys with BJ Cole and Noel Dashwood
Sunday 17th December
South West London at Half Moon Putney
Lunch Time gig
Tickets: HERE
Hank Wangford And Noel Dashwood
Promises Promises Album Launch
Friday 22 December
The Club, 2 London Road, Beccles, Suffolk NR34 0TZ
Tickets: HERE
http://www.hankwangford.co.uk/