Wes McGhee

"But if Texas is the devil's land, Then I'm sure glad I never was good."

-- Wes McGhee, Texas #1

Describing precisely what Wes McGhee's Mexico actually play in their remarkable live shows is not the easiest thing to do. As their name suggests, much of their repertoire is influenced by the conjunto music of the Texas/Mexican borderlands. It's a sound that caught and captivated Wes when he made his first trip to Texas some twenty-three years ago and inspired him to write some of his best, most timeless songs.

But there's a whole lot more, as audiences who've caught the band in clubs and concert halls down the years will readily testify. Built on to those Tex-Mex foundations is a formidable mass of original McGhee material that encompasses rock, R&B and classic honky-tonk.

Born in Leicestershire, England, Wes was playing guitar in a local rock band at the age of thirteen, dropped out of school to become an under-aged musician on the German rock club circuit and won his first contract with a major record company while still in his teens. Keen to explore a musical marriage of country-rock and psychedelia, he remained locked into that deal for three years while the label tried – unsuccessfully – to steer him back into the mainstream and refused to release any recordings he made.

Eventually released from that deal, in 1978 Wes recorded and released his first album, Long Nights and Banjo Music, on his own Terrapin label. Rave reviews in Britain and the US led him to visit America, eventually arriving in Texas for an intended two-week stay that was destined to last eight months and become an enduring mutual love affair that would see him living and working in Austin for long periods of time – thanks to the hospitality and friendship he found with Roxy and Judy Gordon, who introduced him to everyone who mattered.

Wes McGhee was first non-Texan to be honored (in December 1984) by The Austin Chronicle with a Songwriter's Recognition Night at the city's legendary Soap Creek Saloon - where he recorded his seminal live album, Thanks For The Chicken, recently re-released on CD by Diamond Records.

Wes's overflowing CV includes record producing (for Roxy Gordon, Freddie Krc, Ponty Bone, and Irish singer Joe Giltrap), guitar-playing guest spots on albums by Kimmie Rhodes, Richard Dobson, Randy (RC) Banks, Heather Myles and Billy Swan, as well as those by Kate St. John, Sid Griffin, Ponty Bone, The Shakin' Apostles, and The Coal Porters. Add to those the award-winning music score he wrote for the Children's Film Foundation movie, Big Wheels and Sailor, and the haunting Arabic-inspired soundtrack he composed for Voices In Exile, the highly praised TV documentary first screened by Britain's Channel 4 in 1998, and you get some idea of his versatility and eagerness to explore new musical avenues.

Those explorations continue with his forthcoming album, Tejano Moon, which is scheduled for release in 2001, on Wes's new Zacatecas Records label. Recorded over the past two years, it maintains Wes McGhee's habit of delivering a delicious hot-pot of musical styles and moods, from out-and-out barnstorming country-rock songs to rollicking Tex-Mex sagas via breath-catching Spanish guitar-led ballads.

It's been a pretty long haul, one way or another, but all those dues Wes McGhee has paid along the way have left him and his band equipped to deliver one of the most dynamic shows you're ever likely to have seen, anywhere, at any time. It doesn't fit into any neat music industry pigeonholes, so we won't bother to suggest one to you.

It is, as the man himself says, more fun than anything else you can do with your pants on…