'Happy Face in the Mourning' - Wales Road

By L.David Wheeler
Daily Messenger
April 23,1999

'Music From And For The Soul'

Tom Wales still gets it from people from time to time,the raised, disapproving eyebrow at the idea of 'Christian Blues'.

While the success of performers like Jars of Clay seems to have made Christian rock/pop less of a seeming oxymoron to the general public, the blues still has the reputation of being a music of despair, a theme some believe at odds with a Christian mind-set.

"They say,'were Christians, we're not supposed to have the blues'", Wales said. At those times,he responds that many of the Psalms in the Bible are laments,their composers' honest cries of anguish to God.

Wales uses his music -as the songwriter and singer for the Rochester based Wales Road- in a manner similar to the psalmists.He considers it an expression to God of his innermost feelings, whether joy or agony,in the hopes that others will relate as well.

Both joy and agony are in evidence on Wales Road's albums, the fourth of which ("Happy Face In The Mourning") was released a few weeks ago. It includes songs dealing with loss and loneliness - Wales is a divorced single parent - and songs of desire for a deeper fellowship with God. The title refers to finding joy amid pain through faith.

"I communicate my faith - my joys,my struggles,my prayers - through my music, " Wales said. "My music is an extension of my devotional life. I'll sit down and strum a prayer and start singing. Most, actually all, of my music is directed to God. "

The music itself is a mix. "acoustic rock,neo-folk and blues is the pigeon hole we get stuck in," he said,noting the overall sound is "very sixties - we've been compared to, and I'm not worthy, Bob Dylan and Michael Roe." (Roe's the lead singer of obscure Christian rock band The Seventy Sevens, a favorite of Wales.)

Wales has felt a deep connection to music of the folk and blues bent ever since he was a child, falling asleep at night listening to Johnny Cash records. (The "man in black" remains one of his musical heroes.) His parents bought him a guitar when he graduated from high school in the mid-1980's ("when I was a little kid they wanted me to play trumpet,and I hated it") and he wrote his first song while attending college at Elim Bible Institute in Lima. Eventually, he felt it was time to share his music with other people ,in 1994 he self-produced the first Wales Road album, "Pray For Travelin' Mercies" .

The band has played mostly in the Rochester area, in churches,colleges and coffeehouses (both Christian and mainstream) though he said it's starting to get bookings in the Buffalo area.

Wales Road has received airplay on assorted regional radio stations, and Rochester's WITR 89.7FM picked the single "Glimpses (Thru The Window)" as 1997's "Independent/Unsigned Artist Song of the Year" and one of the songs from the new album has been featured on a compilation disc of artists both local and national. Along the way,the band has picked up a devoted area following, nicknamed "Wales Roadies".

Success aside, Wales doesn't have any ambitions for "making it big" in the music world; he'd like people to buy his albums and come to his concerts,but he's more concerned with writing his songs and reaching people on a honest,human level than he is with fame and fortune.

He said the band has played to packed rooms,like a concert a Calvary Chapel of the Bristol Hills; on the other hand, "I've had shows where four people show up and it's the sound man, the sound man's wife and the sound man's mother."

"Tt's all God's Grace," he said. "He gets all the credit. He's the One who opens and closes the doors; I just try to be open and faithful."

By L.David Wheeler
Daily Messenger
April 23,1999