Wes Wingate: Alternative Country Chord Progressions

You may hear an Americana record as good this year, but you won’t hear one better.

The opening is haunting, melodic, melancholy, and somehow has a hint of pop. No World Waiting would be at home running through the credits of Yellowstone, Longmire, Landman, or Justified and you’d feel compelled to watch every last line. That’s how Wes Wingate opens his latest release, Alternative Country Chord Progressions. Warning, if you listen to this song once, it’s going to stay on repeat in your playlist. 

From there we jump directly into a honky tonk parlor with a song Waylon Jennings would absolutely tear through. Right to Be Wrong is the only topical or political song (some would call it) that can be enjoyed and blasted as an anthem by folks from South City, to “The District”, to the outskirts of Johnson County. 

Wingate then takes a pretty Steve Earle song from 2002’s Jerusalem, The Kind, and makes it beautiful. Somebody’s Knocking kicks things back in with a pinch of funk over the top of 70’s pop perfection. 

The Weight of God takes over for the Devil that was knocking as the middle of the album continues. The brushes on the snare drum and the soft, almost lullabye like vocals Wingate delivers would make George Strait smile. Hurry Down Lord follows and shows up right on time. This is the song you could put on the juke and spin your best girl around the sawdust covered saloon floor to. The musicianship on this number is next level. Everything from the lead guitar to the light piano all dance together to pure perfection. 

One Stops on my Windowpane needs to be used for the montage of a lonesome man driving down a two lane highway alone in a Cohen Brothers film. On Bees and Birds Wingate sits down at his piano and pumps out some key work the likes of Dr. John or Leon Russell would hear, nod, smile, and gladly approve of. The chorus here could get all the ladies on the dancefloors of Beale Street sliding side to side. Then he mixes in a saxophone solo so you know exactly what it is he’s talking about. 

The closer, Sins of our Fathers, ends Wingate’s catharsis sweetly and softly. You can tell that he needed to sing this one. He needed it in the world. 

Not a note was misplaced, a word wrongly sang, or a single misstep taken on Alternative Country Chord Progressions. If this isn’t Wingate’s masterpiece, I’m scared to hear what will be.