Born in Leicestershire, following a seven year contractual battle with a record company that did not warm to his notion of fusing psychedelic rock and country, McGhee finally gained his artistic freedom, formed his own label and, in 1978, released his debut album, Long Nights And Banjo Music. Over the next eight years he released a further five albums via Terrapin, Airmail, Landing Lights, Thanks For The Chicken, a live recording that featured long time collaborator Kimmie Rhodes as well as accordion legend Ponty Bone, and 1987’s Zacatecas, a title that reinforced McGhee’s affinity with the TexMex or Border Music being made by the likes of Ry Cooder, Butch Hancock and Tom Russell.
During this period, a time when Americana (as it was not yet termed) had still not found any real foothold in the UK, McGhee, now largely based in Austin, was an early homegrown practitioner of what was then being tagged alt-country and at the forefront of the imminent roots music explosion, to the extent of becoming the first non-Texan to be awarded a Songwriter’s Recognition Night by the Austin Chronicle at Austin’s Soap Creek Saloon and the first non-US national to be signed to the country’s leading publishing company, Bug Music.
Putting Terrapin into cold storage for a while, McGhee’s next album, Neon and Dust, emerged in 1990 on Minidoka to be followed by three released via Road Goes On Forever before resurrecting Terrapin in 2000 for Alcazar, an instrumental album combining Spanish guitar and oud, released under the name of Joaquin Romas, to be followed by 2003’s Mexico and, two years later, Blue Blue Night.
At this point, fate, and, I suspect a few too many packs of cigarettes, he was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), an affliction of the lungs and airways which, as you might imagine, makes singing none too easy. However, following an operation to bring it relatively under control, he’s picking up where he left off, with a new album due sometime this year. Before then, however, by way of both a retrospective and, for many, an introduction, he’s put together this 3-CD set, a 46 track set drawn from his previous releases, variously remastered, remixed or, in some cases, re-recorded, along with a booklet containing background notes and full track credits.
Given the number of songs included, it’s hard to know where to start and impossible to mention them all, especially in any sort of career timeline given they follow no chronological track listings. However, the first disc kicks off with the twangy resonant guitar instrumental ‘Bead Mountain, Valera’, taken from 1985’s Heartache Avenue, before heading into ‘ Texas #1’, the first of several numbers in praise of the state (and state of mind) he calls a second home. That’s from Airmail, which also provides ‘How Do We Get There From Here’, an early introduction to McGhee’s affection for Border Music, while this first disc also includes such classics as ‘No Angel On My Wing’ (with Patty Vetta on harmonies), telecaster led waltzer ‘Cheater’s Own Blues’, brass embellished slow burn blues ‘Heartache Avenue’ and, with Bone on accordion, Lloyd Maines on pedal steel and Rhodes, Vetta and Jimmie Dale Gilmore among the backing vocals, the six minute ‘Neon and Dust’ from Landing Lights.
Landing Lights also provides the opening cut on Disc 2 with the reflective regret-stained (‘They Used To Say) Train Time’ and, heavily TexMex flavoured, unfolds to include seven and a half minute seminal border ballad ‘Monterrey’, the Mexican-sung ‘El Sol Que Tu Eres’ with McGhee, on bajo sexton and sharing vocals with Vetta, ‘Drink Your Dreams Away’, the Russell-like ‘Ciadad Acuna’, a waltzing ‘Ghost of Dale Watkins’ and even a taste of ‘Alcazar’ with the evocative ‘Ghazal #3’, before closing up with a reprise of ‘Bead Mountain’ (think David Lynch meets Johnny Cash) and the thirteen-minute epic elegy ‘Texas #2 Parts 1 and 2’ featuring the voices of the late Roxy Gordon and Grandma Sarah Bodell.
The third disc is a bonus selection gathered together under the title Scars, Bars & Red Guitars , a collection of largely uptempo songs reflecting McGhee and the band’s countless live shows and arranged as a set list, bookended by ‘Endless Road’ and ‘Moon on the Brazos’ from Mexico and taking in early nuggets ‘Long Nights & Banjo Music’ and the George Jones-like honky-tonker ‘Whisky Is My Driver’, the latter featuring Kimmie Rhodes on harmony, as do the brassy swing ‘Get Your Feet From Under My Table’ and honky-tonk waltzer ‘I Wouldn’t Think Twice’ while ‘1000 Ways To Be Bad’ is a fully-fledged duet.
There is a minor niggle in that there’s no indication which tracks have been re-recorded or remixed or, given that some of the songs have featured on more than one album, which version is included here, but otherwise this is a very welcome reminder of a somewhat overlooked pioneer of the alt-country/Americana movement and the many great songs he has contributed to the genre. Long may he continue to do so.
Mike Davies
Artist’s website: http://www.wesmcghee.com/
From 2008, ‘Monterrey’ live at The Mean Fiddler:
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