Loading

Wild Ponies

Venue: Grateful Fred's @Café D'Art
Town: Formby
Date: 24/11/14
Website: http://www.wildponies.net

Attending one of Grateful Fred's Café Sessions at the Café D'Art in Formby is always special. The intimate surroundings combined with the friendly crowd make it almost like a house concert. Add to this some of the best Americana artists from the USA and you have a guarantee of a great night and tonight was definitely no exception.

Tonight's guests were the superb Wild Ponies, who are originally from Martinsville, Virginia, although they are now based in East Nashville. Wild Ponies are the abundantly talented husband and wife duo Doug and Telisha Williams, on guitar/vocals and double bass/vocals respectively. Before they evolved into Wild Ponies, they made two albums and toured the folk circuit as Doug and Telisha Williams but decided to call themselves Wild Ponies to reflect a heavier, rootsier and more electric feel to their music, as evidenced on their fine new album "Things That Used To Shine" [Continental Rose Records], which was produced by Grammy Award winning producer Ray Kennedy.

Naturally, tonight's performance comprised a number of songs from that entirely self-written album, and what songs they were!

Any band which begins their set with a chilling ballad about child abuse is bound to get your attention but that is just what the Ponies did with "Trigger", which describes in graphic detail how the abuser is shot and killed "because old times shall not be forgotten".

On a somewhat lighter note was the bluesy shuffle of "Trouble Looks Good On You", on which Telisha's sultry Southern vocals were perfectly complemented by Doug's string-bending guitar solo.

The album's title track "Things That Used To Shine" is a list of old but good things [a little like Ian Dury's list in "Reasons To Be Cheerful"] on which Doug sounds uncannily like John Prine [which is no bad thing at all].

As a self-confessed petrolhead, one of the highlights of the evening for me was "Massey's Run" which describes a NASCAR [stock car] race at the Martinsville Racetrack in 1960, from the point of view of Jimmy Massey, a racecar driver who is beaten in the race by "King" Richard Petty who was driving his famous "Red, White and Blue STP Number 43. I can honestly say that it's the best motor racing song that I have heard [and that includes George Harrison's "Faster"]. Talking to Doug after the show, I was pleased to tell him that I had actually met Richard Petty at a motor show in Birmingham [West Midlands, not Alabama].

From the roar of racing engines, Wild Ponies moved to quieter pastures for Telisha's delightful song about her grandmother "Iris". This affectionate portrait tells how Iris "chewed plug tobacco and when she spit, she never missed the can"! This was "Really Quite Lovely"[in joke].

The heavier side of Wild Ponies was evident on the tarot card song "The Truth Is" which featured Doug on Union Jack bedecked Telecaster from which he wrought a variety of guitar styles from rockabilly twang to full-on psychedelic acid-rock, in the space of this song.

Doug's shimmering, echo-laden, Neil Young-like electric guitar was also much in evidence on the opening track of the album, "Make You Mine", a somewhat raunchy number on which Telisha's seductive vocals combined brilliantly with Doug's electronics.

Following the upbeat country-rock twang of "Broken", Wild Ponies took a thoroughly deserved encore for which they produced a magnificent cover of the Patsy Cline hit "I Fall To Pieces" on which Telisha's singing was simply amazing.

Doug confided that he had been looking forward to playing here in Liverpool ever since he learned to play guitar by listening to Beatles records and both he and Telisha were clearly delighted by the reception that they received on what was the final date of their UK tour.

Equally happy were the audience of Fredheads who had just witnessed a stunning performance.

By the way, I can thoroughly recommend the Wild Ponies' album "Things That Used To Shine".

Peter Cowley
Photocredit Stacie Huckba

---

Helping Musicians Get Heard!!