Wes McGhee - Comala

Singer/multi-instrumentalist McGhee was playing Americana' long before it was called Americana! When not doing his day job (playing sessions and producing records for other artists), he was dividing his time between London and Austin, Texas, touring and recording with his crack band of half Irish, half Texan & half English musicians, the band of choice incidentally for many legendary touring American roots artists.From the late 70's to the mid-90's he released a string of beautifully crafted and critically acclaimed albums. Then seriously failing health curtailed his touring and recording output and after 2008's BLUE BLUE NIGHT, McGhee withdrew from sight. Then in 2015 BORDERS appeared, a superbly packaged 3-CD career retrospective which demonstrated once again what a gifted songwriter and musician he is.Now comes COMALA, a brand new offering from McGhee, carefully put together over a long time, Ten Long Years as the opening song proclaims. Most of the old band appear and the 14 all new McGhee songs are among his very best work, from the flamenco influenced Burning Bridges, Raising Fences, a chilling indictment of the times we live in, to the sublime 1963 which will resonate with anyone whose dancehall nights were back in the 60's, to the blistering multitracked Spanish guitars of Macondo, each track comes finely crafted musically, with lyrically not a wasted syllable.So, remember the old days? ... when you'd listen to an album straight through? Try it, take 63 minutes and 11 seconds of your time, you won't regret it. And why COMALA? Well, it's all in the accompanying booklet, but in Wes's own words ... it's the ghosts of the miles and the trials, the occasional smiles, that were around for a while, then just slipped out of style ... and were gone!