THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Morgan Wade performed a showcase at her label London Sony to a captivated audience – one with no sign of boots or baseball caps. Wade has a stylistic attraction and at 28 years old she has been to the rodeo and back. She feels intensely the ravages of heartbreak and disappointment and reports the fall out with her open-book song lyrics. With your eyes closed there are shades of Dolly Parton, however the song subjects are a country mile from the Grand Ole Opry music of yonder years, gaining her a new listenership and country cross overs.
She has a mesmeric presence that piques questions about who she is and where she has been, and you rather want to take her for a whiskey, but in fact I think she would ask for a peppermint tea. She is convincing with a legitimately raucous past and a life-earned raspy, dive-bar performing voice. She went through her repertoire of jingly jangly songs. ‘Last Cigarette’ rolls out a very relatable story, you can see why she has quickly collected a consignment of devoted fans. Wade’s lyric driven songs are thoughtful and bounce around topics such as regret and feeling lost in your twenties. As she says in ‘Reckless’, “Going too fast down the wrong way / Swimming out past where the waves break / I don't know where I'm going now. / I see no signs of slowing down”
Wade is a force on all fronts, even convincing Sony Nashville to “Get me a dog and I will sign,” and indeed they did, as she mused between songs [He's a French Bulldog and his name is Sony! - ed]. Her parents might have known she would reach the heights, branding her with an album ready name that perfectly stretches across a tour bus.
With the success of the book and TV series Daisy Jones and the Six, musical journeys are in the beam and Morgan Wade’s timing is opportune as she negotiates coming out of her 20s and into the limelight.
May 18 York, Barbican
May 19 Liverpool, Olympia
May 20 London, Highways at Royal Albert Hall
May 22 Bristol, Trinity Centre
May 24, Dublin, Ireland, Whelan's
