Ward Thomas

Call it the ‘Nashville Effect’ or the ‘C2C Effect’, call it the ‘Whispering Bob Effect’, but British country music is on the up....
Ward Thomas : Live

Ward Thomas : Live

Credible British country music artists tend to be somewhat thin on the ground, but with the arrival on the scene of Hampshire based duo Ward Thomas (made up of sisters Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas) it certainly looks as though U.K. fans might have some top drawer home grown talent to cheer about. Call it the ‘Nashville Effect’ or the ‘C2C Effect’, call it the ‘Whispering Bob Effect’, but British country music is on the up.

Ward Thomas have issued two excellent albums to their names including Cartwheels, a U.K. number one album earlier this year (and not the UK country charts either, the real proper chart), recorded in Nashville with Bobby Blazier and Chris Rodriguez, who have worked with Wynonna Judd and Shania Twain respectively, and they have a deal with Sony who appear to be prepared to invest some serious effort in them. It’s pretty clear where Ward Thomas see their trajectory and it’s right up there where Taylor Swift is leading the way.

They certainly write terrific country pop songs, not those huge lumbering epics that some country artists prefer, but sweet little pieces about love and aspiration, and their voices are superb, with just the right amount of heartache and Southern twang without it getting silly. So for my part their show at Lincoln Engine Shed on Thursday 25th May was about finding out whether they could carry it off live, and the answer is that they did it in style.

Extra security checks meant that we only got to see the last couple of songs from openers Wildwood Kin, which was a shame because from what little we heard their harmonies were terrific, particularly on their cover of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Helplessly Hoping”. They’ve got a packed schedule of summer festivals on the way and if you get the chance to see them you should definitely take it.

Whatever the little bit of magic is that turns country music into gold, Ward Thomas have oodles of it and then some. They took turns at lead vocal and their four-piece band was as sharp as you could wish, and they switched between the Roadhouse style bluesy swingers and the softer ballad style numbers easily, performing an acoustic section mid show by way of variety.

Highlights included “Town Called Ugly”, which recalled The Mamas & The Papas Creeque Alley, “Cartwheels” and the new single “Material”, and they rounded the show off with “Push For The Stride”, the opening track from 2014’s From Where We Stand, probably the first Ward Thomas song that many of the crowd tonight heard and just about the perfect way to finish. It’s a song full of platitudes, I’ll give you that, but it’s a song that got even the most curmudgeonly of us (that would be me), tapping their toes and as we left smiling and singing as we scoured the pavement for an authentic looking stalk of corn to chew on.

Ward Thomas

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