Hank Wangford
| Hank Wangford | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Samuel Hutt |
| Born |
15 November 1940 Wangford, Suffolk, England |
| Genres | Country & Western |
| Occupation(s) | Physician, Musician |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1976–present |
| Labels | Cow Pie Records, Sincere Sounds, Charisma Records, Situation Two |
| Website | http://www.hankwangford.com |
Samuel Hutt, known by the stage name Hank Wangford (born 15 November 1940), is an English country and western songwriter.
"Hank is a good smoke screen. He can do things I can't do. He's my clown," says Dr. Hutt, who has been struggling to balance his musical and medical interests ever since medical school at Cambridge University. His 1960s practice in a drug-addiction centre brought him into contact with a lot of rockers and wide renown as London's long-haired, rock-and-roll doctor, and later a television series. "If The Who had a first night, the tickets would be sent. I actually had more of an identity crisis with that than with Hank, because Hank is a fool. I quite like him. Dr. Sam was definitely threatening to become a monster."
Sam's family background is radical: his father Allen (a journalist and expert on the history of printing) was a lifelong Communist. During the NUM miners strike in 1984/85, the Hank Wangford Band toured extensively with Billy Bragg and the Frank Chickens as "Hank, Frank and Billy" performing at trade-union benefit and anti-racist gigs. It was during such a benefit for the Greater London Council (GLC) in 1984 that Hank and the band were attacked on stage by a group of right-wing skinheads, an event that has been immortalised in the song "On The Line".
A chance meeting with former Byrds member Gram Parsons, who played him the song "You're Still on My Mind" (from the album Sweetheart of the Rodeo), led him to country music.
The 1984 Edinburgh Festival Fringe saw the Hank and the Wangfords achieve fame (if not fortune) with their show being nominated for the Perrier Award. Fringe Sunday also saw the importation to Edinburgh of the sport of cow-pat flinging. Unfortunately, this required hard cow-pats as an essential part of the process. BBC Radio 1 DJ Andy Kershaw had to put out an appeal for cow-pats which later had to be dried in a microwave oven for them to work successfully.
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