Westley Dennis - Then and One More Day  (click on image to watch video)

30 June 2021

     In Wesley Dennis country, Alan Jackson looms large. The Alabama native's 1995 eponymous debut  on Mercury Nashville records got him a tour with Jackson, charting three singles from his first release.    

    But as many aspiring artists before him have  experienced, the  label dumped him after that first release, and a string of labels who offered support down the road also failed to deliver on their promises, causing Dennis to take a decade long hiatus from the business in '02, returning in 2012 when a Canadian label picked him up and a former record owner released a trove of 1999's Country to the Core CDs he had discovered while cleaning out his garage and gave to Dennis to sell. 

  Dennis released the critically acclaimed Country Enough on Dirt Road records in 2012, and has been back on the circuit since then, now out promoting his latest, Then and One More Day.  

   Dennis' sound owes a lot to Jackson. On “Hey Pretty Baby” Dennis scrapes the bottom end of the vocal spectrum in fine Alan Jackson-fashion.. Sweetened with buckets of weepy fiddle, Dennis channels Randy Travis on the title cut, with a George Jones end-of-time loving scenario similar to “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” 

 Although  Dennis penned most of the tunes on the release, he chose to lead off with a cover of Dallas Frazier/doodle Owens' "(I'm So) Afraid of Losing You Again," Charlie Pride's second number one hit in  1969. Dennis cover is more countrified than Pride's pop/country version, roughing up the ballad a bit with some weepy, honky-tonk pedal steel, borrowing  George Jones tonsils to  polish it off.    

    His original, “Halo and Horns,” is a mellow country rocker as comfortable as an old saddle, Dennis trotting along a  well worn track that still rocks the jukebox.  “Love The Tired Out of You” could be big deal for Dennis, the kind of sneak up on you  hit that wont get out of your head,  a song along anthem that should be a juke box staple for any cowboy looking to lasso his soon to be beloved or just his beloved for the evening.

     This is  big league material, proof that Dennis deserves another at-bat in the big show.  

Grant Britt ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) has been writing about music since the earth cooled a while back. A staff writer for No Depression, his work also appears in BluesMusic Mag and the Greensboro News and Record. 

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