Singer-songwriter Hank Wedel was born in Dayton, Ohio, in the 1960s, lived in New York City until the age of 11 and then grew up in Mallow, Co. Cork, in the 1970s, returned to NYC during the ’80s and ’90s and is now based in Cork. Hank’s passion for music and songwriting is evident in his delivery of a song. A consummate performer, he has shared the stage with Irish music legends Bono, Shane McGowan, Declan Sinnott and Kila.
Irish folk-singer legend Christy Moore recorded Hank’s song “Listen” and made it the title track of his best-selling 2009 album on Sony Records. In 2012, Hank released a single entitled “Mighty Fine.” The track was his first ever digital release and it reached No. 4 on the Irish iTunes Singles Chart within two weeks of release. In the past, he has been involved with the bands Princes Street and Open Kitchen, and a long-standing Monday night residency at Charlie’s Bar with mandolinist Ray Barron attracts a large weekly loyal following.
Our reviewer and colleague, Stevie, reviewed Hank’s album “What Happens in Cork” (link here). Summing it up, Stevie wrote, “It is for anyone wanting to relax and unwind with an album and a good glass of something they enjoy! It is music to entertain, music to tell stories and music to unwind to. It may also be one for me to put my frock on and sail off to join the party.”
In late August party mode, we settled into conversation with Hank to find out some of the background to the album.
We started off by asking about Hank’s links to New York and wondered if they remained a strong musical influence for him within his songwriting. Was he still happy to move into the “New York Groove” (AKA Ace Frehley).
Hank: “Poe Park” (2 am) is the opener on the album and it’s about Edgar Allen Poe’s house in New York. It’s a true story, an account of a true story that happened in the late summer of 1990 when I found myself in New York. At that point, I was 27 and I went to Poe’s house in New York with a woman that I had just played a gig with and had only really just met. She was on the music scene in New York, playing the Irish bars and so forth; she’s called Sylvia Bagge. Sylvia had a huge voice and was great fun to sing and play with, and then late one night after a gig in the Bronx, she said, ‘Let’s go down to Poe’s house,’ and I was of the view that we couldn’t get in, but she was of the mind that we could get in under the gate! So around 2 am, that is exactly what we did. Now the cottage is a historical site with a park nearby, and this cottage gets Poe devotees there all the time. We settled to play on the porch of Poe’s house and were playing for about 20 minutes when we heard a voice from inside the house saying to get out or the police would be called, so we just ran!
Hank was born stateside of the pond, of course.
Hank: Yes, I was in New York until I was eleven. My dad was a New Yorker, and my mother was Irish. So in 1974 they decided to move my whole family, my sisters and I, back to Mallow, Co. Cork. We came on a boat; it was a Russian boat, a Soviet luxury liner (!) and over we came via boat rather than plane. You will see that “(We Are) The Rakes of Mallow” is the last song on the album, so my journey from New York to Cork and then to Mallow and the songs I have written in the mean time are all there. “Poe Park” is probably the oldest song on the album but there are other songs on there that were written recently. There is a song called “Alright! Dynamite! Spiro!” It’s track six and if you look on Bandcamp or on the physical CD, there is an illustration of the man Spiro, a friend of my dad’s, and he died at the beginning of 2020—not of COVID, but of heart trouble. When we were growing up, we would meet Spiro and his brother Nick; they were Greek Americans living in Manhattan, and he would always have this phrase, “Alright, dynamite.” So it became a saying in my family and even among my children when they were growing up. When he died in 2020, I decided to write this song about Spiro. At the end of his life, he was terrified about being evicted from his house. The way that old people can get terrified and scared, but when he passed, just before lockdown, I sat down at the kitchen table to write this song. It became a rocker of a song. I recorded it with Declan Sinnot, a well-known Irish musician and record producer (he has worked with Christy Moore for over 30 years). We turned it into a rock n’roll song and there are plenty of bands that I work with here that I play with here that love to do this one. It works well, and there is another New York connection with that one, my dad’s friend.
We also noted that over the years Hank has recorded over 7000 gigs; out of all those, does one stand out?
Hank: Last night! I am celebrating a few anniversaries this year. To turn to those 7,000 gigs, for the past 30 years I have played every Monday night at Charlie’s Bar here in Cork alongside Ray Barron. Last night we had a big crowd and over the last 30 years it has been a steady thing. Ray plays the mandolin and I play the guitar. He leans more toward the folk and acoustic genres, while I lean more toward rock, although that is a broad brush. Ray plays electric mandolin and he is in a band called Two Time Polka. We’ve known each other for a long time and we have held court for three decades in Charlie’s. Actually, the most memorable gig in recent memory was perhaps not last night but when we did the CD launch in Charlie’s on August 19th. I had a band with Declan Sinnot, and Ray was away, but we did the whole album with a band. Plus, if you go to my Bandcamp (linked at the end of this feature), you will see I have a few albums out. I also did ‘Lark by the Lee’ in ‘89 and ‘90’ to some 20,000 people; I had a band called ‘Princes Street’ back then. I have also played on the top of the Empire State Building; that was memorable! I took a chance in the wake of 9/11 to get in touch with the Empire State people and told them I’d like to play on top of the building on St. Patrick’s Day in 2002, and I brought a band and played on top! I love to play live, bands come and go, but my love for live performances remains. It’s how I make my living and conduct my life, and that’s what I do. It requires discipline, but it also requires the ability to take chances and have undiscipline too. You have to be able to keep it fresh, and that is the lifestyle I have chosen for myself and I have a wife who understands, thankfully.
Readers of this magazine will know that we often try to raise mental health awareness and promote music as a means to support wellbeing. We seem to live in an era where some people wish to attack the soul of music, with Taylor Swift canceling her Vienna shows recently for fear of threats and, of course, the Manchester Arena outrage. Listening to “What Happens in Cork,” the message appears simple: ‘Dance, live life and have a good time.’ Stevie wrote for the song “Sleep Out on the Beach,” It is a chilling track. Watching the wheels go by and enjoying the moment. Forget the problems, sleep out on the beach and be careful of the tide coming in! The chorus picks up and the drums again provide a strong rhythm to a good summer track.
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Hank: I agree with the point on mental health. When I arrived in Mallow in 1974, it became apparent that I could hold a song and play the guitar. The environment on Mallow lends itself toward creating music. The first gigs I played when I was young, before I got paid, were in two different arenas; when I was aged around 13 and 14, I would, after Sunday dinner, be picked up. Then I would be taken to two specific places; one was old folks homes and the other one was known then as asylums, psychiatric hospitals today. I was there with my guitar and I quickly learned how music would soothe these people who were locked away for whatever reason, either for being old or for being unable to cope with society for whatever reason. To some extent, around the same time in the 70’s there was “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975),” and I was being brought into these places that I recognized from that. I knew if I could entertain these people, to get them involved and away from what was bothering them for a time, to sing or whatever, then I was doing my job. Since then, that has been my standard playing. Professionally, the world can be insane and, sometimes, in a bar far away, you can be playing and the people can be a bit insane! People want to forget their troubles, even if for an hour, and music can do that for you.
“Sleep Out on the Beach” relaxes.
Hank: Yes, and that song is interesting. Declan Sinnot, my producer, recorded ten songs with me, but one of them wasn’t working out. Declan had a song called “Sleep Out on the Beach” that I loved and it is his song, but from recognition for his work on the album, I wanted to record his song. It was last year’s single. We did no video for that one for various reasons, but last year I was doing a bunch of dates in the US. I was visiting friends and family and I’m still a US citizen. I was over in New York and Seattle. I found myself on Bellingham Bay to see the sunset near Seattle. There were some kids sitting around waiting for the weekend to finish and I sang “Sleep Out on the Beach” for them on the beach as the sun went down. That is the magic I chase! You can see a video of that on Facebook. They were this little group in their late teens just waiting for the sun to go down on the weekend, having a few drinks, and they had this grey-haired hippy turn up to entertain! But music, with dedication, can give you a dividend. It may not be financial, but it is certainly spiritual and healthy. It can connect you to people with whom you would never have been in touch before.
On a side note, how sad that so many of the psychiatric places have gone and those requiring help for their bipolar condition, or whatever drugs and drink-related issues they may have, are now thrown into the community and then prison. As a society, we need to move from punishment to support. We need to listen to the music more. We support music and art therapy and we see many of these people as more of a danger to themselves than society very often. But that is only an opinion.
“(We Are) The Rakes of Mallow” was a favorite track of both Stevie and the rest of us here at the magazine. We loved the video with all the different elements—the witches, the Bollywood dancers, the girls doing their vocal input, the infusion of joy within the piece and some great lyrics, “Money doesn’t walk, it runs.”
Hank: I’m glad you noticed the different elements in the video. Declan was involved with the production and writing of that song with myself and a woman called Mary Greene. He also took on the video. I’m glad you noted the Indian dancers. When I arrived in Mallow at 11, it became apparent that this tune on the “Rakes of Mallow” was a dance tune, and my sisters would dance to it. You would hear it here, there and everywhere. I would notice that this tune has been played by everyone from brass bands to symphony orchestras and it was all about Mallow. Now, Mallow had a sugar factory and chocolate factory (Rowntrees) when I moved there in 1974; I used to say it was the sweetest town in Ireland! All that has stopped there, and the industry moved elsewhere, but back-in-the-day whole families were supported and raised in those industries. Back in the 1700’s, if you investigate Mallow, there was a warm water spring discovered there underneath the town, like in other parts of Europe. Where these towns had the warm water, the 1700’s spas, a certain amount of debauchery seemed to follow the bathing. All the European dandies and all those who wanted to come over and be naughty, would head into erotica, and, possibly other things as well.
There is nothing new under the Sun.
Hank: Absolutely, and Mallow had that reputation. There are a few tunes on the idea of rakes from “The Rakes Progress,” “The Rakes of Limerick,” and “Rakes of Mallow.” It was said to me that a rake was someone so debauched that they would spend eternity raking coals in hell. These were young, and slightly destructive young people! And many people do have a more devil-may-care attitude between 17 and 30. What makes the Indian connection interesting is the way Ireland, then, had British soldiers stationed in Mallow in the 1700’s and those soldiers may have then been stationed in India and they took the tune with them to India. In Hindu culture, Lord Krishna was known as a child to be very naughty and spirited. There are festivals in India to Krishna that have appropriated this tune, “The Rakes of Mallow.” There is also a Canadian band who do the tune with Indian instrumentalization, the tabla and sitar and so forth. It is fascinating. Writing the lyrics, I wanted to recognize the different aspects of it. The language in the song is archaic, but there were male and female rakes and there was language for both of them. I sing “Beuing, Belling, Dancing, Drinking.” Beuing was women chasing after men and belling was men chasing after women, so a man was a beu and the woman was a bell, so I kept the archaic language in my verse. But the second verse was written by a woman called Mary Greene who felt that she couldn’t work with the archaic language, and brought it up to date: “Hey girls, if your life’s a mess and you need to ease your stress.” That verse was actually sung by my niece; she is in the video as well (she’s in the red dress). The original concept for the video had an idea that I would be kidnapped and time-travel back to the 1700’s, like a dream. That is what we were originally going for. What we have is some of it is clearly up to date, and some of it is more eighteenth century. There was a great time had with everyone dressing up.
We have to note how catchy that song is—you hear it and you find yourself singing along to it for the rest of the day! There is a clear dance element to the album, there are connections back to earlier tracks by Hank like “Feisty Love,” which indicates that there have always been dance numbers in his track list.
Hank: “Feisty Love” goes back to my “Poe Park” lady! Sylvia and I wrote a couple of songs when I was in New York back in the early nineties and “Feisty Love” was one of them. Sylvia wrote it about playing violin in the school orchestra; it’s really her song. In terms of dancing, I have a band here in Cork, and we have been playing all ten songs from the new album and at rock n’roll gigs where people expect covers of tracks they know we have often taken a chance and played all the album before any covers. It has been interesting seeing people dance to the tracks. Maybe I am not being pushed by some multinational corporation, but I make music because I enjoy the creation and I like how these musicians want to make it danceable and play it.
And as a closer, what was the last album Hank listened to, and did he enjoy it?
Hank: There is a Sierra Ferrell album called “Trail of Flowers” (2024; she’s a Nashville-based bluegrass artist). She is so worth investigating; she has a song called “American Dreaming” that I love. If people are reading this, then I discovered her about two years ago; I saw her in Dublin, and she was amazing. I have been in this business a while and she is so good. She is a powerhouse, not frightened to tackle jazz or country or whatever; she is one of the most authentic American artists that I have heard for some time.
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You can stream the album here.
Hank Wedel bandcamp is linked here
By: Mark C. Chambers
and
Lorraine Foley
