No country for bold man: Liam Grundy finds his roots in Richmond
You don't have to wear a cowboy hat to play country music, as Richmond-based singer-songwriter Liam Grundy will tell you.
Over the years, Grundy has worked with the best Nashville and Memphis have to offer, from Elvis Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore to the team at Johnny Cash's lable, Sun Records.
But when it came to making his own debut album, Grundy decided to head home to the UK. And the aptly-named Richmond is the result.
"I've worked in back rooms producing and writing for other artists," says Grundy, "but I thought at the age of 50, I should make a start of going solo.
"I'm not going to pretend that I really live in Nashville. I can't stand line dancing for one! But a lot of country music comes from Irish roots anyway - like me. So why would I want to put on a cowboy hat and stand by a truck?"
Instead, Grundy's album cover features a table full of mementos and musicalia, from a local history book on Richmond and an old-fashioned black telephone to the shiny white guitar beloved of country stars everywhere.
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With cameos from Preben Raunsbjerg, Richard Sadler and Steve Rushton, the music is just as mixed - a thick slice of Americana honkytonk between two wedges of London life and love, as demonstrated on title track, Richmond.
"I wrote that song when I'd moved away for five or six years but kept finding myself back here," says Grundy, "I was sitting having a beer in a Richmond pub, thinking: why am I still here?"
The reason, my friends, was for a woman - why else? - and unlike most country love-stories, this one ended well. Grundy is back in Richmond to stay, that is when his band is not entertaining theatre-goers in the foyer of the National Theatre.
"It's funny," he says. "Everyone want to go to Nashville to make their country album - Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, the lot. But Nashville's a huge place, not a village at all. So in a funny kind of a way it's easier to find that small-town thing in Richmond."
He laughs. "Richmond, Surrey - the birthplace of modern country music!"
Liam Grundy's album Richmond is released today, February 15, on Hot Tomale Recording. See myspace.com/liamgrundy for more details.
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