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HANK WANGFORD
Of Hank's performances
the New York Times said:
"If
you want originality, something that still has the bite and twang
that drained out of so much country, the sharp cutting wit and
the rawness of hard country, then there is only one man to see.
His name is Hank Wangford."
Click
Live Dates for details on upcoming gigs
where you can see Hank
*****
Hank Wangford and The
Lost Cowboys new CD 'BEST FOOT FORWARD (songs from the ledge)'
is
now out on Evangeline Recorded Works Ltd. It should be available
in all major/specialist record stores and online from Sincere
products merchandising at this website.
*****
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HANK
WANGFORD & REG MEUROSS HEAD OFF
Hank 'n' Reg will be
doing an extensive autumn and spring "Hank n Reg Head
Off Tour" as a lonesome duo. See for
Live
Dates
more details.
Hank
Wangford continues to plough his unique furrow through the wastelands
of Country Music. Leaving his band The Lost Cowboys to languish
on honky tonk’s hard shoulder, he sets out far from the
luxurious melancholy of the smoked glass stretch limo & the
5 star country’n’western motel suite with his singing
& song-writing partner Reg Meuross, And this time it’s
intimate!
This
no-frills tour of ministadia will see them driving their own
cars ! carrying their own guitars! mopping their own brows
! ! but hopefully not buying their own beers !
Hank
and Reg will share with you their love of the dark heart of Country
music. They will feature toetappers and tearjerkers with
such Divorce-Defying Country near-classics as "He Forgot
to tell you he was a Married Man", "You've Already
put big old Tears in my Eyes - Must You Throw Dirt in My Face",
"Never wear Mascara when you Love a Married Man", "I've
Forgotten what it is that I was Drinking to Forget", that
old spell-along-a-Gospel favourite "S-A-V-E-D" or the
egg-related “If You Ain’t Married Sunny Side Up - Try
Divorce Over Easy”.
As
well as songs both solo & together, there will be book-readings,
stories & even poetry.
Both
Reg and Hank have been busy and have just released new albums
- Hank’s “Best Foot Forward - Songs from the Ledge”
and Reg’s “Short Stories” (see Reg's new site,
www.regmeuross.com). They will be pleased and proud
to offer copies of these and earlier classic releases on the
well stocked $incere Product$ stall.
"There
are no strangers,” avers Hank, “only friends we don’t
recognise” so he and Reg will be coming to a village ministadium
near you to shake hands and meet’n’greet with more
friends they don’t recognise later this year.
Hank has picked at the miserable underbelly of
country music for twenty years, inspiring others like Billy Bragg,
and many other alt.country musicians. He has spread the word
with his two television series, "Big Big Country" and
"The A to Z of C&W" and his books "Lost Cowboys"
and "Hank Wangford Vol 3 The Middle Years". Reg Meuross
was hailed by both The Times & Time Out Magazine as “…one
of this country’s finest Singer/Songwriters.”
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*****
Heartfelt thanks go to our two greatest
living Cowboy artists for indulging a dream and allowing us to
show you some of their frontier work.
"Hanks a million" to Paul Slater for his cover oil
painting of Hank dreaming foolishly on a horse's arse high up
on a mountain ledge.
"Hanks a million" too to Colonel Glen Baxter for reminding
us that Country music is not just visceral and cerebral but exists
out there on sunset plains all its own.
*****
We started
recording
this in March 2002, forty two years from the day Elvis fleetingly
set foot on British soil. We went on grabbing moments, passing
twenty five years since Elvis died after his last hamburger;
half a century since Hank Williams died in the back of his powder
blue Cadillac on the way to a gig; seventy years since Jimmie
Rodgers, Country's first superstar, died coughing up blood in
a hotel room just after his last recording session.
We finished seventy one years to the day Johnny Cash, still singing,
was born.
Half way through we went to Nashville to chronicle the story
of the Grand Ol Opry, now back in the Ryman Auditorium, the Mother
Church of Country music.
There, right in the heart of the Beast amongst the Bible salesmen
and the New Country hucksters, we found salvation. Across Broadway
from the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, half a dozen Country beer joints
are jumping day and night, young bands peddling classic honky
tonk with not a New Country songster or Garth Brooks shirt in
sight.
Country music is old, not New. Anything called New has had the
blood and guts, the heart and soul wrung out of it. Roots extirpated.
Britain's New Labour,
America's New Country.
*****
The Falling Angels were expelled from
Heaven with their old friend Lucifer after his big break-up with
Big G. While Lucifer went straight down to Hell to get stuck
into the business of eternal damnation, his mates are spending
the rest of eternity falling through time and space as the Falling
Angels. They remain all around us, either tempting us or knocking
us off the path of righteousness. So the Falling Angels are the
cause of all our pain and all our transgressions.
They made Nashville create New Country.
Thanks to John Walsh's memoir "The Falling Angels"
for this story.
*****
The Lost Cowboys' Prayer -
"Deliver us Oh Lord from the bland Hellspawn that is New
Country"
The Lost Cowboys' Thanksgiving -
"Hanks be to God, Allah, Jesus, Krishna and Buddha for deciding
to save George Jones yet again. Even though you took his spleen
this time George has more work to do for you and for us and will
surely sing forever"
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