Gig review: Hank Wangford & The Lost Cowboys

BACK when he was known as Dr Samuel Hutt, Hank Wangford rubbed up against the good, the bad and the ugly of rock’n’roll at his London drug addiction clinic.

Hank Wangford. Picture: Contributed

Hank Wangford & The Lost Cowboys - ABC2, Glasgow

****

But it was a fateful meeting with Gram Parsons which put him on the country music path, and country has served him well ever since.

Delighted to be back on his old Sauchiehall Street stomping ground after too long an absence from the scene, the 73-year-old looked lithe and stylish in his embroidered shirt and sounded even better as he blurred the boundary between bone-dry originals and classics from the country canon with the sterling backing of his Lost Cowboys – easygoing drummer Roy Dodds (Eddi Reader), the plangent playing of guitarist Martin Belmont (Nick Lowe/The Rumour), esteemed pedal steel maestro BJ Cole, who took the dreamy lead on Santo & Johnny’s Sleep Walk, and new girl Anna “Spanner” Robinson on bass and vocals, who put her spiritual house in order on a capella harmony duet Insured Beyond The Grave.

Wangford was an engaging advocate of the devastating domestic vignettes of Willie Nelson and George Jones, the tragic melodrama of the waltz-time repertoire and the masochistic catharsis of a right good divorce song, wallowing in the “industrial strength misery” of Nelson’s Half A Man.

But there was no need to fret for Hank’s home life – the glamorous Mrs Wangford was by his side to model some practical promotional items from the merchandise stall.

FIONA SHEPHERD

Seen on 15.05.14