"Serious country music is alive in South Wales, not least in the form of Cheatin' Hearts, a five-piece band that, with slight changes of line up, has been playing around Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan for a few years. I caught them at the Bute Dock Hotel, a stalwart little pub from Tiger Bay days that is enduring Cardiff Bay's transformation into a leisure 'destination'. Music at the Dock (often blues and rock) is sometimes slap bang in the public bar, but this quieter act was given a sunken lounge area where those of us who wanted to pay real attention could do so.

Cheatin' Hearts' repertoire is country classics and new country, with carefully chosen numbers from other kinds of artists (the Stones, Dylan...). They opened with a set that included Hal Ketchum's 'Missing You', Cash's 'I Still Miss Someone', Hank William's 'So Lonesome I Could Cry', and Springsteen's 'All That Heaven Will Allow'.

Stephanie McNicholas' vocals are strong and her look is a perfect 1950s-ish mixture of sexy and serious in black-rim 'existentialist' glasses. Barry King on five-string electric bass, and drummer Keith Bowen on a minimal rock kit, demonstrated the requisite symbiosis. Bethan Frieze was devilish fine on violin (black-nailed fingers sawing one of those futuristic electric fiddles), and Phil Tunnicliffe, with his electric Fender guitar, more than fit right in - he carried rhythm and lead throughout, dialoguing musically with the whole team.

The evening was a real pleasure. High points were Patsy Kline's 'I Fall to Pieces' and a heavy R&B version of 'Walking After Midnight', also great was Dylan's 'You Ain't Going Nowhere' with Tunnicliffe on vocals. We had Ryan Adams' 'Stars Go Blue' with terrific fiddle harmonies, Springsteen's 'Sad Eyes', and a bunch of other standards and not-so-standards.

"The encore was well deserved the band's adopted signature song. "Cheatin’ Heart".

Gwion James
Traditional Music Maker