Al Lewis explores the Welsh roots of country music in new documentary series

Nation Cymru staff

Al Lewis is set to investigate the largely overlooked contribution Welsh migrants made to country music, speaking to academics, musicians and people whose families trace their roots back to Wales in a brand new radio show.

When Al Lewis travelled to Nashville in 2012 to record an album, he discovered that the Welsh have played a far greater role in shaping country and Americana music during the nineteenth century than many realise.

Over a decade since he travelled to Nashville to record his album ‘Battles’ with Grammy Award-winning producer Charlie Peacock, his experience has led him to a new destination – the creation of a new documentary and his latest single.

“I have always loved Country music but when I visited Nashville I always felt that us Welsh were under-represented in the story of how Country music came to be, so in this documentary I wanted to see whether my suspicions that the Welsh had in fact played an important role in the creation of ‘country music’ had any merits.’

That fascination has now become the subject of Al Lewis: The Welsh Roots of Country – a new BBC Radio Wales documentary available on BBC Sounds from today (31 August).

Among those Al meets are Professor Emyr Wyn James, Appalachian music historian Jack Neely, Hollywood actress Dale Dickey, and Ross Holmes of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

The documentary explores the Welsh communities that developed in Appalachia, the chapel and hymn-singing traditions they carried with them, and how these traditions found their way into the developing sound of American roots music.

He said: “This new recording of ‘Will the Circle be Unbroken’ is the culmination of my journey into the colourful and joyous roots of Country music.” And for Al, recording the new single was a way of turning that historical journey into something tangible.

The song became closely associated with the Carter Family, one of the foundational groups of early country music, and has since become part of the shared musical vocabulary of American roots music.

Al recorded the song with Welsh actress & singer Celyn Cartwright, creating a stripped-back acoustic arrangement built around their two voices, acoustic guitar, violin, mandolin and double bass.

Celyn’s involvement adds another contemporary Welsh voice to the project. She is currently appearing in the new musical The Ballad of Johnny and June, which explores the lives and music of Johnny Cash and June Carter and is currently touring the UK.

“I didn’t want to make a polished country version just for the sake of it,” says Al. “I wanted it to feel like two people sitting down and singing a song together — which is really at the heart of the story I’m telling in the documentary.”

The recording also gives the title of the song a new resonance: a Welsh musician and performer revisiting one of the songs that helped define American country music, while exploring the cultural connections between Wales and Appalachia that lie beneath it.

Mission

Lewis told Nation Cymru: “The idea for the documentary came to me after my first trip to Nashville. When I was there I visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and noticed on the information boards dotted around the place, references were made to the English, Scottish and Irish immigrants who’d settled in the area and how their folk culture and songs had formed the basis of what would become Country music. Yet there was no mention of us Welsh.

“That didn’t seem quite right to me, so I made it my mission to prove that us Welsh had indeed been present at the birth of country music and that’s why I wanted to make this documentary.”

Al added: “I’ve always been a fan of music from the American Deep South, as a child I loved Elvis, and from there I began to appreciate the wider range of music from Memphis, Nashville and beyond.

“But it wasn’t until I went to Nashville in 2012 to make my album Battles that my appreciation of country music really grew.

“A couple of years later I formed an Americana/Country duo called Lewis & Leigh with US singer Alva Leigh and my love of Country music got even stronger.”

As for whether or not the documentary has influenced his next releases, he shared: “My new single “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” is a new Welsh twist on a classic by one of the founding families of country music ‘The Carter family,’

“I hope to introduce more people to the beauty of country music.”

‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’ is out now.

‘Country with Al Lewis’ – Al’s new monthly country show starts tonight (2 September) at 19:00 on BBC Radio Wales

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