The problem with having Ags Connolly in this ‘More people Should Know About…’ feature is that I guess many AUK readers will know of him already even if they aren’t very familiar with his work. However, I wanted to write an appreciation of Ags’ wonderful, memorable music and affecting words and hope this will make him some new fans or cause others to revisit his work.
Ags attempted to write songs for many years but only became confident in his work after attending a workshop in Nashville led by super-musician Darrell Scott. The four albums he has produced so far are ‘How About Now’ (2014), ‘Nothin’ Unexpected’ (2017), ‘Wrong Again’ (2019) and 2023’s ‘Siempre’. The fabulous sing-along first track on the very first album, ‘When Country Was Proud’ really sets the scene for these four albums, because it showcases Ags’ great love of traditional country music in his mentions of artists such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Hank Snow. Later on ‘I Saw James Hand’ initially tells of his seeing Hand for the first time when he was playing with Dale Watson. Ags then really nails his colours to the mast with the line “If I didn’t know I was country then that made up my mind”. To use a footballing analogy, it is as if “country” is his team. The album’s music, like the other three, is strongly influenced by country music from the fifties, sixties and seventies although as time has gone on, the albums have had more and more of a Texan flavour. Ags sings and plays guitar and there are fiddle, piano and steel guitar added at times, as you might expect.
The lyrical themes of the first album continue through the other three as well. Ags is from Oxfordshire, a rural county, and his words reflect the feelings of a man, often in a bar and seemingly in a small town. The views of a loner, sometimes drinking, sometimes feeling lonely and often unlucky in love, mirror some of old-time American country music but are unusual in modern lyrics. It is rare to explicitly admit to loneliness in 21st-century lyrics, though not in past traditional country, but, for example, in ‘The Dim and Distant Past’ Ags sings “I always knew I would be lonely”. Here the singer is thinking about his nineteen-year-old self and regretting the missed opportunity of romance with a girl. There is a lot of regret for past decisions throughout his four albums but this is told straightforwardly, taking responsibility for the decisions with little self-pity.
His second album ‘Nothin’ Unexpected’ has a Mexican flavour in some of the songs with accordion, which starts to become more of a feature of his work as time goes on. Opening with the swinging ‘I Hope You’re Unhappy’, where he hopes that a lost love will be unhappy enough to return, there is heartache and loneliness dealt with again. However, he also writes of the bars where he goes drinking and playing and is a champion of these places which are struggling to survive at the present. ‘Haunts Like This’ talks of a particular venue where he can feel at home; “There’s always girls/ Behind the bar/ And they remember who you are/ And what you usually drink and how many takes you too far”. The title track is about somewhere he used to play and the memories when he goes back to visit.
‘Wrong Again’ just noses ahead as my favourite album. It is just crammed with great tunes and was awarded Album Of The Year at the 2020 UK Country Music Awards. Examples of these are ‘The Meaning Of The Word’, where he chides a female friend for not understanding love and ‘Say It Out Loud’ about a friend whose marriage has just collapsed, but there are many others. The swinging honky-tonk of the final track ‘Sad Songs Forever’ puts a positive gloss on Ags’ often gloomy work as he says that he wants to “sing sad songs forever…..songs that make me feel like I’m alive”.
One track on the album, ‘Lonely Nights In Austin’, tells of meeting someone special in the Texan city. You guess that Ags must know Austin well and will have developed a love for Texas-style country partly as a result of his visits. His latest album ‘Siempre’ is hugely influenced by music from this area- he merges various styles from here such as “Tejano music and barroom waltzes” with traditional country. It starts brilliantly with ‘Headed South for a While’, where he reflects on his life at age forty. Not unsurprisingly, he sings that he has been “headed south” but not in a particularly good way. There are tales here of romances or possible romances but he seems still not to have found the lasting love that he wants. However, he feels grateful to have been in love even if it didn’t last in ‘In Love At All’.
And it is not just me who admires Ags’ music. He has had many plaudits from, for example, Country Music People magazine which said that he was “A national treasure”. Other fans are Saving Country Music and Lone Highway websites and singer Tom Russell. BBC DJ Ralph Maclean said that he is “One of the most important and distinctive voices in UK roots music” and Bob Harris praised him as being “Modern day traditionalism of the very, very best kind”.
He plays regularly and has supported Rosanne Cash, Asleep At The Wheel, Dale Watson and Jim Lauderdale, for example. Unfortunately, he doesn’t come up to the heathen North very often so I have only seen him once when he was recently supporting Charlie Crockett but missed him when he was supporting Summer Dean. Up there on stage, he has a dry good humour and it was great to see him in the flesh.
If you have not heard Ags’ music before and “country” is your team or even your second team then give his music a listen. You won’t be disappointed.
