Album Review – Joshua Hedley’s “All Hat”
Western Swing (#511) on the Country DDS.
Why Western Swing has never enjoyed a popular resurgence like other subgenres and eras in country music is a lingering question. Perhaps it just doesn’t have the same elasticity of bluegrass, or the nostalgic appeal of ’90s country. But Joshua Hedley has never been one to follow trends. If anything, he sets them. Many point to Hedley’s 2022 album Neon Blue as the opening salvo to reigniting interest in ’90s country before it became a craze. Some guy named Zach Top even contributed a few songs to it.
Western Swing might be a harder cause to champion, and even harder to perform with its jazz chords and complex instrumentation. But all the more reason for Joshua Hedley to tackle it, and expose audiences to its bygone beauty. Known to many as Mr. Jukebox, The Singin’ Professor of Country & Western, and The Mayor of Lower Broadway for holding court at Robert’s Western World on Lower Broadway for many years, if anyone’s down for doing Western Swing right, it would be Hedley.
Soliciting Western Swing legend Ray Benson of Asleep At The Wheel as producer, Joshua Hedley pens a love letter to Western Swing, and sings its virtues. This isn’t a close approximation of the Western Swing discipline, or a synthesis of it mixed with modern sensibilities. All Hat is a strict reenactment of what you might have experienced in a prewar dancehall in Texas, or at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa when the titans of Western Swing walked the earth, only Hedley graces the sound with fresh new songs.
Not to discount Mr. Hedley’s lyrical work or vocal performances—which he makes sure to fashion in the Golden Era of Western Swing’s reign—but All Hat first and foremost is an instrumental tour de force, showcasing sumptuous performances from a starkly diverse chorus of instruments. And we’re not just talking fiddle and steel guitar (Hedley’s a fiddle player himself, along with acoustic guitar). The piano, the period accordion, and especially the clarinet (or as Ray Benson caws, “That ol’ licorice stick!”) turn in some incredibly tasty runs.
If nothing else, All Hat might be the instrumental album of 2025 to beat. Josh and Ray really pulled out all the stops to convey their passion for this form of country. There’s even an instrumental track called “Hedliner Polka” that helps highlight the German and Czech influence that crept into Western Swing from the immigrants in Central Texas. This was music made by communities congregating together, dancing and playing whatever instruments they had. This album captures that diversity of sound and the community aspect that other Western Swing projects whiff on.
You’re not going to be wooed by Joshua Hedley’s songwriting here, aside from maybe its adherence to the period looking to be evoked. And it’s fair to say this is a period piece, not an innovative or strikingly original project, even if the songs are new. That’s not the point though. The goal is to make sure these musical dialects don’t erode away from the sands of time. Western Swing done right inherently sounds dated. The challenge is to make that sound feel timeless.
“Authenticity in country music is a myth. You don’t have to buy a ranch and pretend to be a cowboy to play country music,” Joshua Hedley said ahead of the release of this album. But this somewhat misunderstands what authenticity is in country music. Yes, you don’t have to have been born on a ranch, or be from Bakersfield to sing country music. Being “authentic” in country music is being yourself and pursuing your sincere passions no matter who you are, which is exactly what Joshua Hedley does on All Hat.
Like Hedley sings in the title track “I ain’t milked a cow, I ain’t pushed a cart. But one things for certain, I look the part.” That self-awareness is what makes him more authentic that 90% of the performers in Nashville. “You can do it just cause you love it,” Hedley says about country music—or in this case, Western Swing. And that love comes through in this album.
8/10
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October 24, 2025 @ 8:20 am
Merle Haggard’s A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World helped raise the profile of Western Swing for a while way back in 1970 by keeping it real and authentic,Merle even re learned the fiddle. I doubt this will have the same impact but it certainly deserves to,as you say the instrumentation is spot on.Maybe it will inspire other artists to give it a go like they all did with the Bluegrass bandwagon.Maybe it needs the Coen Brothers to do a movie set in Texas with a Western Swing soundtrack !
October 24, 2025 @ 10:08 am
Listening now. This is pure swing
October 24, 2025 @ 11:13 am
Love hearing another younger artist pay homage to Western Swing as Brennen Leigh did a couple years back. Good songs, good music,and a fun listen.
Trigger, I was thinking (as I was driving listening to this album) and of course hearing Ray Benson as part of it, besides the King Bob Wills and Milton Brown, would you say Ray Benson will be remembered as one of the top all time greats in Western Swing? I know Merle Haggard’s tribute album renewed interested, Hank Thompson did some, and the Time Jumpers honor it, but Ray through Asleep At The Wheel has truly been THE Western Swing group for over 50 years. He has played on so many other Eestern Swing songs with other artists. Kinda like Marty Stuart’s contributions to preserving the history of Country Music, who else has done more for this genre? A small pond but he is (literally) the big fish!!
October 24, 2025 @ 4:01 pm
I would definitely consider Ray Benson and Asleep At The Wheel all-time Western Swing greats, only behind Bob Wills on the depth chart, if only for the longevity of the career that is still going.
October 24, 2025 @ 6:21 pm
Thanks Trigger.
It is a shame that some of these legendary artists like Asleep at the Wheel and Marty Stuart end
up playing mostly small venues without the nationwide notoriety. I guess it happens in all genres that eventually
their fan base is older and usually smaller and the demand for them is less. I guess it gives us a chance to see greats up close and personal. Sort of how you always say to see artists before they move to big venues. Eventually, some will always hold big shows (George Strait, Alan Jackson) but most will return to the smaller places they started. The circle of fame-it comes and goes….
October 24, 2025 @ 1:30 pm
Good fun album on first listen, especially the musicianship as you say, but the pacing felt off. The second half of the album (last five songs) are all slower in tempo. I think the album would have been improved by alternating the uptempo songs with the slower ones. I’ll surely be listening to it again, but that immediately stood out to me.
October 24, 2025 @ 3:55 pm
Yeah, I know what you mean about pacing on songs. Im a big Waylon fan but man, listening to 4 sloooow songs on a record side is tedious, and he often did that.
Im always for more Western Swing. Glad Benson is still doing his part to encourage the young artists who are willing to brave it. Its a very cool music form and worthy of preservation. I doubt this is a big seller any more than Brennan Leighs album, but I think it’s a passion project and for those who seek it out, it will be rewarding. Hedley ought to do a residence in Texas with this material. Maybe move down for a month or two and do as many shows as possible.
October 24, 2025 @ 4:07 pm
Spectacular. I’ve been watching his little acoustic shorts the last few months and can’t wait to hear the rest of the album tonight.
That lingering question of why western swing declined while bluegrass thrived has a bit to do with the fact that it it flourished in the age of gigantic ballrooms and a huge swing dance craze. It’s hard to sustain a band the size of Bob wills’s without the gigantic audiences, all those bands had.
It’s been interesting that Western swing, which partly started out as a kind of synthetic genre that blended swing with old folk tunes for cowboy movies And then later big TV shows like the Spade coulee extravaganza with harp and other weird instruments, has now gone “back to the land” And is another acoustic old-timey style in some cases. I’ve been trying to delve into whether some of the 1920s early fiddle recordings were kind of a prototype of Western swing- there were a bunch of fiddlers that played rags in old-time fiddle and it feels like the following decade that stuff transformed into the big band movie music and then the Bob wills type giant dance event extravaganzas.
Also, for anyone who only knows this stuff from Bob wills and the kind of slightly corny rhinestone cowboy look, you should dive into the absolutely futuristic wild version that speedy West and Jimmy Bryant did. There’s a great interview with Jamie Bryant on YouTube called something like ” Jimmy spills the beans” where he talks about his evolution from a country fiddle player to a jazz guy after he was in Europe in the military. Those guys heard Django Reinhardt and took it back to the US and their version of Western swing is more like Django Reinhardt on steel guitar and the earliest country lead, with an absolutely futuristic circa 1950 Jetsons feel to it. Jeremy Wakefield and Deke Dickerson and Co have resurrected some of that stuff but man I want a mini revival of that to be happening.
October 24, 2025 @ 4:52 pm
For guitar players, im of the opinion that Jimmy Bryant is way overlooked. His work would make modern shredders sit up and listen. The recordings with Speedy West were just killer. Stratosphere Boogie is a mother of a song. Im forever looking for an original vinyl copy of their albums. And yeah, I’ve got the Deke produced Biller and Wakefield album from long ago, it’s decent but not as good as Speedy and Jimmy.
October 24, 2025 @ 4:57 pm
This is super fun and authentic. It’s a pity, I believe that country fans won’t accept most horns in songs..Merle used them well to accent tunes and many rockabilly bands feature sax..As well the big Hammond b3 organ with leslie effects occasionally hit a tune. Seems producers stick to the tried and true with little experimentation. Variety of instrumentation is cool to me and I approved 100% of that.
October 24, 2025 @ 8:12 pm
I’m so sick of this cheeseball poser. What a doofus.