New Band Project

There are given, longstanding and generally accepted theories on the twentieth century development of American music, uppermost being the arrival with the slave trade of African rhythms which, when exposed to North European immigrant folk forms, morphed eventually into jazz, blues and even country. While this is undoubtedly a truism, it is certainly not the whole story.

Freddie Steady was talking to me a while ago about the difference between the way musicians from the South West play as compared to those in the rest of America. Freddie says “They just don’t play like us! It’s not better or worse, it’s just different!”

Well, I believe there’s a reason for this and one that goes back many years before the North Europeans arrived in the American continent.

We have to go back to the ancient classical Eastern empires to search for the start of our musical journey. The instrument of choice for the Arabs and Moors was, and still is, the OUD - or LAUD in Spanish - a fretless lute on which Arab scales featuring quarter tones could be produced. The music travelled through North Africa and in the eight century the North African Moors invaded Spain, where they remained for nearly eight hundred years. In the tenth century Cordoba in Andalusia was the western capital of the Islamic empire and a major centre for the development of literature, philosophy, science, medicine and music. This was a time when Arabs, Christians and Jews lived side by side in the tolerant religious climate of the Moors.

However, come the re-conquest, things changed: the Moors and Jews were eventually expelled from the Iberian Peninsula and the oud developed frets - probably in an attempt to rid the instrument of those (by then) unacceptable quarter tones. The oud became the lute and eventually, the guitar.

Gypsies originated from India, although this is probably only part of the story, ending up in Southern Spain and over years developing their own folk form, Flamenco, at first just voice and percussion, but over the last two centuries gradually incorporating the guitar and somewhere along the line the quarter tones started to sneak back into the vocals. The gypsies were, and in part still are, a marginalized group, which is perhaps why Flamenco continues to develop into the twenty-first century.

Now what, you might be asking by now, has all this got to do with Texas and a new McGhee band?

Let’s deal with the Texas bit first. What seems to be largely ignored in the history of the development of American music is the influence of the Spanish conquest of South and Central America. The Conquest being mostly an ugly, brutal affair, it’s easy to overlook the important things it introduced to the American continent. For instance, neither Cowboys nor Indians would have the same images for us without the horses introduced by the Spanish and as for the American musical journey, it would never have even got off the ground without the Spanish introduction to America of …. STRINGED INSTRUMENTS.

The music of the Moors and the Spanish seeped into South and Central America (and remember that included Texas and a large part of the South West), bringing with it many centuries of the music of the uprooted, the dispossessed, the marginalized, the downtrodden, the loners and the roamers. Is it any wonder that while a country song from any other part of the US can sound like a yeehaw, gingham-clad, thigh slapper …. a Texas honky tonk song can sound like the deepest, darket blues?

And this is where the blueprint for JONDO DELUXE (pronounced “Hondo Deluxe“) originates. I have played the oud for many years, flamenco guitar for maybe a decade and rock ‘n’ roll and Texas border music for longer than I care to remember. Primarily acoustic, heavily percussive and strongly featuring the original McGhee Band’s vocal harmonies,
JUNDO DELUXE brings all these influences together. In some pieces you’ll hear Flamenco, Moorish, Tex Mex and Latin forms in an unusual line-up of the multi-instrumentalist members of the original Wes McGhee Band.

JONDO DELUXE is planned as a three album project, WATCH THIS SPACE!

Enquiries to: terrapinmusic@hotmail.co.uk

The live-in-Austin  “Thanks for the Chicken!” . double album is out of stock but available from this very plebsite on CD. We may re-release this at some point as a double CD/DVD package. The DVD will contain live footage made around the same time as the album, your chance to check out the band when we were all thin and had hair!