Folks, It’s Ags Connolly!
a review of and interview with country music ace Ags Connolly
by Adam Van Winkle
Country music has it its decades and its sounds. 90s country has a sound. 80s country has a sound. 70s country. 60s country. And on back.
And then there’s them that are timeless country artists.
Ags Connolly belongs to the latter. His voice, his lyrics would stand out in any era. We’re mightly lucky that his time is now, and we’ve still got more music coming from his pen and his pipes.
If you’re new to his music, or, gawd forbid, just hearing his name for the first time, where do you start? I could sing the praises of each of his albums for any number of reasons. But to give you some focus, I’ll stick to the last two, last year’s Your Pal Slim: Songs of James Hand and 2023’s Siempre.
“Honky Tonk” was a term first used to describe beer joints playing ragtime and early jazz music. Of course, it evolved to emobdy a kind of country music. And Ags’ can be as Honky Tonk as it gets. Take Siempre’s opening song, “Headed South For A While,” whose lyrics stand up to any Hank Williams or (this issue’s inspiration) James Hand sad beer drinking number:
Like a bandolero
Slowly goin’ out of style
All I want is to pick up my money
Don’t get fooled by my smile
I’ve been headed south for a while
He’s also got the knack for a good love song:
I need you like I’ve needed no one before
And without you my life has no meaning anymore
I guess it sounds like a hell of a thing to say
But I think we belong together
And I trust my heart these days
(from Siempre’s “I Trust My Heart These Days”)
See what I mean? Timeless lyrics that could have been recorded by anyone at anytime: Hank, Dolly, Merle, Dwight. Ags Connolly lines are good anytime, always. Or, siempre.
2024’s Your Pal Slim: Songs of James Hand are just that, Ags singing some of his departed buddy’s best tunes. Connolly is the perfect interpreter of Hand’s beer joint and character driven lyrics. As on all of his albums, he sings with a voice perfect for these Texas country tunes (despite his being British). He’s got a lot of twang, with a phrasing that feels a bit like Merle, a bit like Marty Robbins. It's pure country molasses.
He's the right one to cover James Hand songs. After all, he knew the man (see interview below). He loved his music. On 2014’s How About Now (okay I’m not sticking to the last two albums), he sings:
I saw James Hand at the old Luminaire
And he played on his own which was beautiful and rare
And when I asked him he played ‘That’s Frank Over There’
When I saw James Hand at the old Luminaire
On Your Pal Slim, Connolly gets his chance to tell about Frank and them.
Over there, that's Frank
I've got him to thank
He sets me up when I'm broke
And there's old Al
A sad-eyed pal
Whose stories so plainly show
And in walks Glen
He takes me home when
I'm too drunk to drive
And the barmaid’s Lou Ann
Who holds my hand
Each time I start to cry
And boy, do I see it and believe when Ags sings it as much as I do when Slim does. Timeless.
Cowboy Jamboree is stoked to feature a vignette from Ags Connolly in this issue, inspired by James Hand’s lyrics (see “The Room”). I’m damned happy to sing his praises here. And we’re mighty grateful he agreed to answer some questions for CJ and its readers.
AV: 'Ags' is an interesting name. How’d that come about?
AC: A common question! It's a nickname. My real name is Alex and my brother couldn't pronounce it properly when I was born. I was Agso originally but over time it became Ags.
AV: How’d you get into country music? Was it part of your growing up? Or did you come to it as you got older?
AC: It was a convoluted path for me. I didn't hear country music growing up, except maybe when Garth Brooks first got big here in the 90s. My first musical obsession was Buddy Holly, and looking back I think I was very much drawn to his country roots. But I really discovered it when I became interested in songwriting. I loved simple, direct songs that were deceptively hard to write and, after much searching, I realised that country music was home to that kind of writing. Then I found it suited and spoke to me more than anything else had.
AV: Obviously it’s one thing to get into a type of music. When did you start writing songs? Was being a musician something you always wanted to do?
AC: It was quite early on when I knew I wanted to play music, but I didn't really have the confidence. I started trying to write when I was about 12 and the results were as you'd expect. At some point though, I had this very clear vision that songwriting was going to be an important thing in my life. I can't explain that - it just hit me one day and I knew it as a fact. I started teaching myself to play guitar at 16 and gradually wrote more songs. They weren't good at all at the start, but that vision I'd had compelled me to stick with it.
AV: Is there a standard process to your approach to songwriting? Like, do you create a workspace and process for it? Or is it more just happenstance…as it comes to you?
AC: I used to say I had no process at all, but I think I do now. Either a title or a lyric has to come into my head and germinate for a while. Then I try to match it to a groove and a melody. If it feels like something is there, I spend an inordinate amount of time considering lyrics and chord progressions: the two things are very important to one another. I record parts of it and listen back as objectively as I can. This process can take months per song (but I've got a lot better at working on more than one at a time!). I guess I don't want to look back at a song later and feel it needs changing, or that there was something I missed. That does happen, but I try to minimise the potential for it.
AV: When did you discover James Hand? What was your relationship like with him?
AC: James came over here opening for Dale Watson in the mid-2000s. When I saw James was on the bill I swotted up by buying his new album at the time The Truth Will Set You Free. I got to the show early and happened to encounter James as he walked through an otherwise empty venue. That night is immortalised in my song 'I Saw James Hand', but that was truly the moment I knew I had to play country music and there was no turning back.
I wish I had spent more time with James and been able to talk more. Whenever we met it was at a show and I always introduced myself as "the guy who wrote the song" as I didn't expect him to remember me. The last time we met in 2018 was the most resonant though as he'd been thinking about us maybe writing songs together, and we swapped a few songs in a hotel room. James was one of those people that you can know and not know in the same instant. I'm always fascinated to hear the experiences of people who knew him well or just fleetingly. People like James Hand do not appear in the world very often.
AV: Besides Slim, what’s your all-time list? Like, who’s in your pantheon of country gods/goddesses?
AC: This is always a tough question for me! I take influences from a lot of country artists, so I'll try to stick to the key ones. David Allan Coe is a very important artist to me - he was very inventive and I think his songwriting approach was similar to mine. Others I'd mention are Johnny Paycheck, Merle Haggard, George Jones, The Louvin Brothers...naturally Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams. My favourite women are probably Connie Smith and Leona Williams. There are a glut of country songwriters I could mention but I'm trying to keep it short!
AV: I was reading, I think it was Ray Benson’s biography, and he was talking about playing concerts in Germany and being surprised to see audience members in full cowboy regalia, fully embracing the music. And I think about David Rodriguez, a great Texas songwriter that spent his last twenty years or so in the Netherlands. I don’t know if you feel like you have a perspective on this, but I was wondering what you thought about why certain country and Americana artists seem to get over more in Europe than they do in America?
AC: I think it varies a lot by country and by culture, honestly. For example, I'm very aware that a lot of the honky tonk sound in my music doesn't always translate to a UK audience. They have no point of reference for it. Whereas I go to Sweden and they get it much more: there was a guy called Alf Robertson who recorded a lot of classic country there in the 70s and it kind of fed into the national consciousness. In general, Scandinavian countries and places like the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany will be much more attuned to Country and Americana than, say, Latin countries. In terms of one artist being more popular than others, I think a lot of it is just to do with timing. Sometimes people are just ready to hear that stuff - so if someone comes over on tour or appears on TV in a certain country at the right time, an audience will respond. I remember someone telling me that John Hiatt got big in the Netherlands before he ever made it in the US. I'm not sure there's any real explanation for that other than it was the right place and time.
AV: To that end, what current country and Americana artists are you listening to?
AC: Okay this is a tough one because what I listen to moves and changes pretty rapidly. But recently I've liked Dylan Earl's new album Level-Headed Even Smile and Robbie Fulks's Now Then. I'm looking forward to Jeremy Pinnell's new record. Generally though I listen to a lot of older stuff. I'm very much a song guy before anything else so I'm drawn to the writers.
AV: How did prose writing, like Outside the Light and "The Room," come along? Again, was it something you always wanted to do? Do you see it as an extension of your songwriting, or is it something wholly different?
AC: It was something I wanted to do, yes, but I didn't know if I was capable. I had the time in the pandemic to try it with Outside The Light, and I managed to finish that. I wrote “The Room” because a friend encouraged me to write something based on that great James Hand lyric. I have other prose ideas, but as you can tell from my earlier description of my songwriting process, it can be quite daunting to think about taking on that kind of project...
I don't see it as an extension of songwriting. There are some similarities in the process, but generally prose writing is more technical and cumbersome for me. That said, I trust my instincts chiefly with any writing, so that doesn't change no matter what it is I'm working on.
AV: What’s next? New songs in the pipeline? A new album in the works?
AC: Yes to both, I hope. I have almost a full new album written and will soon start planning to get it recorded. I will likely do a crowdfunder for it, and the timing of that will be key as we are facing some economic issues here in the UK.
My plan is for my songwriting to be at the forefront of this next album. I have always been a songwriter first and foremost and I think it's becoming a bit of a forgotten art. Co-writes have become a lot more prevalent - and are even expected - in the industry now. Obviously there's nothing wrong with that as we can all name a boatload of exceptional co-written songs. But I feel there's an urge now to speed everything up and rattle off huge numbers of songs in a short time. I don't work like that, which is probably why I haven't co-written anything yet. Certain artists just aren't cut out for it, rightly or wrongly. But I do believe there is a place for the singer-songwriter (singular) and that a lot of the very best songs come from that one person perspective.
Do I get a bonus point for answering a question that wasn't asked? No? Alright then.
a review of and interview with country music ace Ags Connolly
by Adam Van Winkle
Country music has it its decades and its sounds. 90s country has a sound. 80s country has a sound. 70s country. 60s country. And on back.
And then there’s them that are timeless country artists.
Ags Connolly belongs to the latter. His voice, his lyrics would stand out in any era. We’re mightly lucky that his time is now, and we’ve still got more music coming from his pen and his pipes.
If you’re new to his music, or, gawd forbid, just hearing his name for the first time, where do you start? I could sing the praises of each of his albums for any number of reasons. But to give you some focus, I’ll stick to the last two, last year’s Your Pal Slim: Songs of James Hand and 2023’s Siempre.
“Honky Tonk” was a term first used to describe beer joints playing ragtime and early jazz music. Of course, it evolved to emobdy a kind of country music. And Ags’ can be as Honky Tonk as it gets. Take Siempre’s opening song, “Headed South For A While,” whose lyrics stand up to any Hank Williams or (this issue’s inspiration) James Hand sad beer drinking number:
Like a bandolero
Slowly goin’ out of style
All I want is to pick up my money
Don’t get fooled by my smile
I’ve been headed south for a while
He’s also got the knack for a good love song:
I need you like I’ve needed no one before
And without you my life has no meaning anymore
I guess it sounds like a hell of a thing to say
But I think we belong together
And I trust my heart these days
(from Siempre’s “I Trust My Heart These Days”)
See what I mean? Timeless lyrics that could have been recorded by anyone at anytime: Hank, Dolly, Merle, Dwight. Ags Connolly lines are good anytime, always. Or, siempre.
2024’s Your Pal Slim: Songs of James Hand are just that, Ags singing some of his departed buddy’s best tunes. Connolly is the perfect interpreter of Hand’s beer joint and character driven lyrics. As on all of his albums, he sings with a voice perfect for these Texas country tunes (despite his being British). He’s got a lot of twang, with a phrasing that feels a bit like Merle, a bit like Marty Robbins. It's pure country molasses.
He's the right one to cover James Hand songs. After all, he knew the man (see interview below). He loved his music. On 2014’s How About Now (okay I’m not sticking to the last two albums), he sings:
I saw James Hand at the old Luminaire
And he played on his own which was beautiful and rare
And when I asked him he played ‘That’s Frank Over There’
When I saw James Hand at the old Luminaire
On Your Pal Slim, Connolly gets his chance to tell about Frank and them.
Over there, that's Frank
I've got him to thank
He sets me up when I'm broke
And there's old Al
A sad-eyed pal
Whose stories so plainly show
And in walks Glen
He takes me home when
I'm too drunk to drive
And the barmaid’s Lou Ann
Who holds my hand
Each time I start to cry
And boy, do I see it and believe when Ags sings it as much as I do when Slim does. Timeless.
Cowboy Jamboree is stoked to feature a vignette from Ags Connolly in this issue, inspired by James Hand’s lyrics (see “The Room”). I’m damned happy to sing his praises here. And we’re mighty grateful he agreed to answer some questions for CJ and its readers.
AV: 'Ags' is an interesting name. How’d that come about?
AC: A common question! It's a nickname. My real name is Alex and my brother couldn't pronounce it properly when I was born. I was Agso originally but over time it became Ags.
AV: How’d you get into country music? Was it part of your growing up? Or did you come to it as you got older?
AC: It was a convoluted path for me. I didn't hear country music growing up, except maybe when Garth Brooks first got big here in the 90s. My first musical obsession was Buddy Holly, and looking back I think I was very much drawn to his country roots. But I really discovered it when I became interested in songwriting. I loved simple, direct songs that were deceptively hard to write and, after much searching, I realised that country music was home to that kind of writing. Then I found it suited and spoke to me more than anything else had.
AV: Obviously it’s one thing to get into a type of music. When did you start writing songs? Was being a musician something you always wanted to do?
AC: It was quite early on when I knew I wanted to play music, but I didn't really have the confidence. I started trying to write when I was about 12 and the results were as you'd expect. At some point though, I had this very clear vision that songwriting was going to be an important thing in my life. I can't explain that - it just hit me one day and I knew it as a fact. I started teaching myself to play guitar at 16 and gradually wrote more songs. They weren't good at all at the start, but that vision I'd had compelled me to stick with it.
AV: Is there a standard process to your approach to songwriting? Like, do you create a workspace and process for it? Or is it more just happenstance…as it comes to you?
AC: I used to say I had no process at all, but I think I do now. Either a title or a lyric has to come into my head and germinate for a while. Then I try to match it to a groove and a melody. If it feels like something is there, I spend an inordinate amount of time considering lyrics and chord progressions: the two things are very important to one another. I record parts of it and listen back as objectively as I can. This process can take months per song (but I've got a lot better at working on more than one at a time!). I guess I don't want to look back at a song later and feel it needs changing, or that there was something I missed. That does happen, but I try to minimise the potential for it.
AV: When did you discover James Hand? What was your relationship like with him?
AC: James came over here opening for Dale Watson in the mid-2000s. When I saw James was on the bill I swotted up by buying his new album at the time The Truth Will Set You Free. I got to the show early and happened to encounter James as he walked through an otherwise empty venue. That night is immortalised in my song 'I Saw James Hand', but that was truly the moment I knew I had to play country music and there was no turning back.
I wish I had spent more time with James and been able to talk more. Whenever we met it was at a show and I always introduced myself as "the guy who wrote the song" as I didn't expect him to remember me. The last time we met in 2018 was the most resonant though as he'd been thinking about us maybe writing songs together, and we swapped a few songs in a hotel room. James was one of those people that you can know and not know in the same instant. I'm always fascinated to hear the experiences of people who knew him well or just fleetingly. People like James Hand do not appear in the world very often.
AV: Besides Slim, what’s your all-time list? Like, who’s in your pantheon of country gods/goddesses?
AC: This is always a tough question for me! I take influences from a lot of country artists, so I'll try to stick to the key ones. David Allan Coe is a very important artist to me - he was very inventive and I think his songwriting approach was similar to mine. Others I'd mention are Johnny Paycheck, Merle Haggard, George Jones, The Louvin Brothers...naturally Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams. My favourite women are probably Connie Smith and Leona Williams. There are a glut of country songwriters I could mention but I'm trying to keep it short!
AV: I was reading, I think it was Ray Benson’s biography, and he was talking about playing concerts in Germany and being surprised to see audience members in full cowboy regalia, fully embracing the music. And I think about David Rodriguez, a great Texas songwriter that spent his last twenty years or so in the Netherlands. I don’t know if you feel like you have a perspective on this, but I was wondering what you thought about why certain country and Americana artists seem to get over more in Europe than they do in America?
AC: I think it varies a lot by country and by culture, honestly. For example, I'm very aware that a lot of the honky tonk sound in my music doesn't always translate to a UK audience. They have no point of reference for it. Whereas I go to Sweden and they get it much more: there was a guy called Alf Robertson who recorded a lot of classic country there in the 70s and it kind of fed into the national consciousness. In general, Scandinavian countries and places like the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany will be much more attuned to Country and Americana than, say, Latin countries. In terms of one artist being more popular than others, I think a lot of it is just to do with timing. Sometimes people are just ready to hear that stuff - so if someone comes over on tour or appears on TV in a certain country at the right time, an audience will respond. I remember someone telling me that John Hiatt got big in the Netherlands before he ever made it in the US. I'm not sure there's any real explanation for that other than it was the right place and time.
AV: To that end, what current country and Americana artists are you listening to?
AC: Okay this is a tough one because what I listen to moves and changes pretty rapidly. But recently I've liked Dylan Earl's new album Level-Headed Even Smile and Robbie Fulks's Now Then. I'm looking forward to Jeremy Pinnell's new record. Generally though I listen to a lot of older stuff. I'm very much a song guy before anything else so I'm drawn to the writers.
AV: How did prose writing, like Outside the Light and "The Room," come along? Again, was it something you always wanted to do? Do you see it as an extension of your songwriting, or is it something wholly different?
AC: It was something I wanted to do, yes, but I didn't know if I was capable. I had the time in the pandemic to try it with Outside The Light, and I managed to finish that. I wrote “The Room” because a friend encouraged me to write something based on that great James Hand lyric. I have other prose ideas, but as you can tell from my earlier description of my songwriting process, it can be quite daunting to think about taking on that kind of project...
I don't see it as an extension of songwriting. There are some similarities in the process, but generally prose writing is more technical and cumbersome for me. That said, I trust my instincts chiefly with any writing, so that doesn't change no matter what it is I'm working on.
AV: What’s next? New songs in the pipeline? A new album in the works?
AC: Yes to both, I hope. I have almost a full new album written and will soon start planning to get it recorded. I will likely do a crowdfunder for it, and the timing of that will be key as we are facing some economic issues here in the UK.
My plan is for my songwriting to be at the forefront of this next album. I have always been a songwriter first and foremost and I think it's becoming a bit of a forgotten art. Co-writes have become a lot more prevalent - and are even expected - in the industry now. Obviously there's nothing wrong with that as we can all name a boatload of exceptional co-written songs. But I feel there's an urge now to speed everything up and rattle off huge numbers of songs in a short time. I don't work like that, which is probably why I haven't co-written anything yet. Certain artists just aren't cut out for it, rightly or wrongly. But I do believe there is a place for the singer-songwriter (singular) and that a lot of the very best songs come from that one person perspective.
Do I get a bonus point for answering a question that wasn't asked? No? Alright then.
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