There were sold out signs tonight for Joshua Hedley’s only Scottish date on his first full UK tour since his album, Mr. Jukebox was released a few months back. Hedley is a Nashville musician who has been a mainstay of the local music joints for many years, holding down a residence at Robert’s Western World while his fiddle playing has earned him many studio session slots and live gigs, touring with several name acts. Although he had dabbled in writing it wasn’t until he gave up some hard drinking that his creative muse began to flow leading to a contract with Jack White’s Third Man Records for his debut album which is a grand update of the smooth and sophisticated sounds of mid sixties Nashville.
From the moment Hedley and his band The Hedliners launch into Willie Nelson’s Night Life it’s clear that the packed crowd are in for a classic country music treat, his mellow voice caressing the song as sweet pedal steel and classic country guitar picking truckled along. Followed up by his own Weird Thought Thinker, his autobiography of sorts set to a wonderful waltz time tune, Hedley was already transforming this Glasgow cellar into an offshoot of his usual Nashville haunts and Counting All My Tears, a pleading ballad sung in a George Jones style surely cemented the deal. We were treated to sad songs and waltzes (to borrow from Mr. Nelson) for a good 90 minutes with Hedley and the band in top form as he easily slipped into humorous introductions (with a running joke about an infamous local beverage featuring throughout) while the band, dressed in matching white shirts and black neckties, were the focus of a truly great joke when Hedley announced that they would introduce themselves and the band left their instruments and shook hands with each other. Corny perhaps but incredibly funny.
While much of the night was focussed on the album with Hedley playing acoustic guitar he did pick up his fiddle for a fine rendition of Willie Nelson’s What A Way to Live and again on his own This Time, a song which stands up well against the many standards he sang tonight. Mid way through the set the band vacated the stage for Hedley to offer us the much vaunted crowd choice element of his Nashville shows. Asking the audience who their favourite country singers were he selected some answers and then played a selection plucked from Merle Haggard, George Jones, Dwight Yoakam, Conway Twitty and Ned Miller, the latter’s From a Jack to a King a real crowd pleaser. Hedley had prefaced this section by announcing that he was doing away with “the encore” saying, “It’s pretty silly going off and coming back on so I’ll do it now” and it was a good half hour of us experiencing the real live Mr. Jukebox in person. The band then came back on and the show finished with the dreamy Nashville pop of Let’s Take a Vacation and finally, as the man said, “it’s the only one I haven’t done yet so you know what’s coming” as they launched into Mr. Jukebox and the crowd hooted and cheered.
Hedley is a living repository of country music; as someone said at the end of the show, “He has a hundred singers in his voice.” He can write songs in the grand tradition but never comes across as a tribute act, instead he’s vibrant and punchy and on the evidence of tonight has one of the best shows to come along in a while. There was, at the end of the night, a thought that seeing him in such an intimate venue might not be possible for much longer.