Vibrant country music with heartwarming words of love.
Wild Ponies are Doug and Telisha Williams, originally from The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, part of the Appalachian range, but now living in Nashville. This is their fourth album, coming quite a while after 2017’s “Galax”. Musically, it continues their tradition of producing excellent, memorable melodies that lift your heart when you hear them. It is country music, having steel guitar at times and the sound of the Appalachians at others with banjo and fiddle. However, it is less polished and edgier than a lot of country with a rock feel on some tracks – for example, the opener ‘Band of Cardinals’ starts with feedback – and a real twang on others. This is very welcome, giving as it does the music an energy and vibrancy.
However, it is the words that make the album stand out. Since 2017, the pair have become certified foster parents, had fertility treatment, become parents to a boy and a girl and become involved in a polyamorous relationship with their partner, Laura. Some of these may perhaps seem unpromising subjects for songwriting, but their skilled words about them are incredibly touching and heartwarming, with love at the centre of them all.
The very moving and emotional ‘Love You Right Now’ concerns their experience of fostering and giving love to a child who may only be with them for a short time “All I can do is love you / All I can do is take care of you/ For all the time that we’re allowed/ All I can do is love you right now” They say of fostering “It’s one of the hardest things we’ve ever done. It’s also one of the most rewarding”.
‘Hurt Your Heart’ is a brilliant love song to their partner Laura, partly about the importance of connecting together in the small amounts of time that parenting allows. It has a wonderful fifties Buddy Holly vibe. ‘Heartbeat’ is a love song to their then unborn child Iris who they thought they had lost until they heard her heartbeat on an emergency ultrasound. Often it is Telisha singing and Doug on backing vocals but here the roles are switched to good effect as it is on ‘Morning Comes’ with its soaring steel guitar. This is about looking at the stars and feeling a connection to others who can see the same stars even if these others are not near. This mystical, dreamlike feeling links the song to others here such as ‘Breathe’ and ‘Night Sky’, the latter also about gazing in wonder at the stars. Wild Ponies are idealistic dreamers and the title track pays tribute to others like them who make things happen: “But the world won’t change without a dream”.
They have embedded themselves in the Nashville community, making many friends in the process, many of whom have contributed to the writing or playing on this album. The powerful ‘Bury The Young’, was written after the Parkland shootings in Florida, as a tribute to the bravery of the surviving students “who stood up and said the things the adults didn’t have the backbone to say”. Doug and Telisha now despair at the governor of their home state, Tennessee, who wants more rather than less guns in schools.
Live, Wild Ponies are full of warmth and joy at playing music together. This album really captures that spirit – it is also absolutely bursting at the seams with love for others. One of the albums of the year, it tugs at your heartstrings like no other in recent times.
