Don't try to describe the ocean (or a kiss concert) if you've never seen it -- Jimmy Buffett.
That's kind of the attitude you have to take with a performance by Washboard Hank and the Wringers from Peterborough, Ontario. While people can appreciate the adept musicianship and clever lyrics on a recording, it's really a spectacle that needs to be seen and heard in person. Bedecked and embroidered western shirts and Stetsons, there was no mistaking the musical flavor of the evening when washboard Hank and his crew stepped onto the stage at the New Horizon Centre in Watson on Thursday, August 14.
The evening was an exercise in country camp, similar to the Hee Haw hijinks of years gone by. Despite the tomfoolery, make no mistake that the musicianship is second to none.
Political satire was on the menu with a ditty called Ain't No Cure for Stoopid, a not so oblique reference to happenings South of the border. Not much was sacred with Hank's gang as they tore into a reworked version of I'm Going to Jackson by Johnny Cash. Humboldt was substituted for the title piece city playing “Wullerton” to Watson's “Dog River.”
Music lovers marvelled at the notes popping off the fingertips as “Quick Pickin’” Nicholas Campbell plied his trade on the ‘59 Gretsch remake or his slide dobro.
Hank's lyrics range from subtle jabs to pure head-on puns, as in the dirge Daddy Got Run Over by a Backhoe, backed by the majestic sounds of his tenor banjo and polychromatic kazoo. Throughout the evening, “Sleepy Jim” Gleason kept a solid rhythm and undertow on acoustic bass. Even the crowd was drawn into an “audience perspiration” moment mimicking bellowing bovines in Meet Me Tonight in the Cowshed.
If his booming baritone and guitar case of puns and stories weren't enough, Hank broke out the fabled Stradivarius washboard for a rousing and unconventional gospel tune Are You Scrubbed on the Washboard of the Lord. Hank’s uncanny hand/head coordination produced clangs, bangs, hoots and jangles, all perfectly orchestrated with his band mates. From stories of garden gnome addictions to meeting potential love interests at a garbage dump, the absurdity just kept coming from a man who could be mistaken as Stompin’ Tom Connors’ edgier prankster brother.
Hank’s instrumental ingenuity was showcased again with his “fallopian tuba,” an abstract creation of discarded plumbing parts. Hank was both encouraged and cajoled by Mountain Muriel whose soaring vocals and deft mandolin picking were a great counterpoint, Hank Fisher and the Wringers plowed through an evening of jokes and mirth, clever song crafting, superb musicianship, and audience participation with each member taking a turn at the mic.
Watson was the sole Saskatchewan stop for the band as they head westward to Nanton, Alberta for their next show. If you missed them this time out, make sure Washboard Hank and the Wringers are a bucket list must see the next time they’re through.