A traditional country artist from Oxfordshire, Ags Connolly is widely considered to be one of the best singer-songwriters in the genre ever to emerge from the UK – but that doesn’t tell the whole story…
Ags’ songs have been recognised and lauded by artists and country music fans in the US, Canada and beyond since his debut album How About Now emerged in 2014. The influential US review site Saving Country Music heralded his arrival on the scene, saying “Ags Connolly deserves to be considered right beside his Stateside counterparts as one of the carriers of the country music holy ghost”.
Three more highly acclaimed albums have followed, each of which emulated his first in being named Album Of The Month by Country Music People magazine – the longest-running country music publication in the world – who have described Ags as “an English Willie Nelson” and “the best singer-songwriter in the country field that this country has ever turned out”. His third album, Wrong Again, was named Album Of The Year at the 2020 UK Country Music Awards.
Ags’ fourth studio album Siempre took the glimmers of Texas border sounds heard on his previous records and merged them with Tejano music and barroom waltzes while also accommodating his honky tonk and singer-songwriter roots. “It’s best described as a Texas music album”, Ags explained. “Texas-style country is my favourite, and it takes many forms. I wanted to celebrate them all.” Siempre was released in June 2023.
A constant presence on the UK, Ireland and European touring and festival circuit – appearing regularly in the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia – Ags has also shared stages with country music icons such as Rosanne Cash, Asleep At The Wheel, Dale Watson and Jim Lauderdale. More recently he has opened shows for a newer batch of stars, including every date of Charley Crockett’s major European tour in 2023.
In addition to the music, Ags published his first novel in 2024 – a crime thriller entitled Outside The Light. He has also presented a number of radio programmes on country music for various outlets.
Ags continues to build a reputation as an uncompromising country traditionalist in the UK and beyond. In an era when the pop and rock incarnations of country music are enjoying a surge in popularity, Ags continues to defend the last outpost of the genre’s traditional roots.
In 2006, Ags saw James Hand – the relatively obscure Texan honky tonker, likened to a ghost from country music’s past – perform in London. Then later in Fort Worth, then London once more. While he would meet and witness ‘Slim’ again in the future, those first encounters proved critical to the path Ags took in music. “If I didn’t know I was country, then that made up my mind,” he later wrote in the song I Saw James Hand (How About Now, 2014).
James Hand was born in Waco, Texas in 1952. He released the first of six albums in 1997, in a career where Willie Nelson called him “the real deal” and Kris Kristofferson described his songs as “soul music”. When James died in June 2020 at the age of 67 and the dust from the rolling of the hearse finally settled, Ags Connolly knew he wanted to pay tribute in earnest to his hero.
The English troubadour began by selecting the songs from Slim’s back catalogue that spoke to him the most. Then he brought bass player Anna Robinson and drummer Robert Pokorny into Woodworm Studios in Oxfordshire, England to lay down a framework for the tracks. That allowed Ags to begin the process of recruiting key performers from James Hand’s career to complete the instrumentation for what would become Your Pal Slim: Songs of James Hand.
James Hand’s last permanent guitar player and band leader Chris McElrath agreed to play guitars, affording the record an essential familiarity and authenticity. In addition, three superb artists who played with James Hand over the years lent their skills to the album: fellow disciple of the Texan’s music Jake Penrod contributed the steel guitars, Beth Chrisman played fiddle – as she did with James many times – and last but not least, Brennen Leigh, who knew Slim right from her early days in Austin, was an obvious choice for mandolin (and backing vocals on Men Like Me Can Fly). Each of these contributions brought the album to a new level, in terms of both musicianship and closeness with its subject.
Most of the songs on Your Pal Slim: Songs of James Hand will be familiar to Slim enthusiasts, but there is one outlier – written by Ags himself – included as a bonus track. Ags said: “The last time I saw James we were swapping tunes in a Memphis hotel room. He told me he wanted us to write songs together. The song Corner Of My Street was the first idea I came up with for us to work on, but, for several reasons, he never got to hear it.”
Of course, many listeners may never have heard James Hand’s music before. There have been myriad comparisons to Hank Williams, and others to the likes of Gary Stewart, but there was something unique and uncontrived about Slim and his message – he wore both his heart and his demons on his sleeves like the adornments of a Nudie suit. That unchecked openness of emotion is what drew him to so many people and fellow artists – Ags Connolly being one.
