Leafy Chiswick seems a million miles from the honky-tonk bars of the American South. But somehow it’s becoming a Mecca for country music fans. Anna Moloney asks why
“Holler and swaller,” yells a man in a flannel shirt to a sea of cowboy hats, beneath which a merry crowd of shoe-tapping line dancers raise their glasses and whoop wildly in obedience to the call. The holler and swaller is a common toast in places like Nashville, designed to get locals drinking fast in country bars. Except we’re not in Nashville – not even close – we’re in Chiswick: the newest frontier of the Wild West.
From the outside, Lil’ Nashville is unassuming. A red brick, semi-industrial block set just back from the high street; leafy London locals off to the nearby Gail’s could breeze by it entirely none the wiser that London’s premier honky-tonk venue lies beyond. Luckily, on my way to the Big Nash Bash, the venue’s fortnightly knees-up, a few stray stetsons sidling down a nondescript alleyway marked the way. Scurrying after them, my own slightly less authentic diamante-fringed hat in hand, I find myself in the heart of one of the UK’s fastest growing cultural scenes.
The rise of country music in Britain has experienced a long, steady plod, but in the last two years things have exploded. In 2024, country was the fastest-growing music genre on our shores, propelled to success by breakaway hits such as Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy) and Dasha’s Austin. But pop hits aren’t the whole story, with the genre as a whole doubling its share of the singles market to 3.3 per cent – its highest stake this century, according to the British Phonographic Industry. Country artists who have played the UK, including those for the Grand Ole Opry’s historic international debut at the Royal Albert Hall this summer, have remarked on Brits’ love for the music itself, often knowing a whole album, unlike Americans who tend to listen to the radio hits.
And things are only on their way up, with London’s country fever now so intense that even Big Nashville is paying attention.
Big Nashville looks to Chiswick
Indeed, when I speak to Helen Wood, the owner of Lil’ Nashville, she’s fresh back from the States where she’s been meeting country record labels interested in sending their artists to play Chiswick, of all places. She says it’s fast becoming London’s informal country hub. Wood, who does not have a background in music but realised a lifelong dream when she opened the bar with her husband Rob this February, says the response has been quite astonishing, admitting the location was almost completely accidental. “It’s quite surreal to put a honky-tonk in Chiswick, but it was really easy for us to commute to,” she says matter of factly.
A 42-year-old northerner, Wood has been a country fan since she was a child and it’s her own memorabilia – Shania Twain records, old concert tickets – that cover the walls of Lil’ Nashville in a nostalgic collage that tells the story of her love affair with the genre. There’s a lot of Americana too, which Wood admits made her a little worried given recent events, but she hopes it’s the southern hospitality, not politics, that shines through.
Wood was intentional in making the space feel like a genuine honky-tonk, rather than a Wild West-themed bar. She was strict: not a single wagon wheel or saloon door was allowed and, I admit, my diamante cowboy hat felt a little out of place with the more earthy country tones embraced by the regulars. Country music is a humble genre, Wood says, with jeans and T-shirts the dress code.
Dancing is key, too. I use no hyperbole when I say the venue lit up for the arrival of the line dancing instructors, not least thanks to the stage’s in-built pyrotechnics. Wood wants the venue to be authentic, but that doesn’t mean she skimps on the thrills.
Khayla Jordan, who heads up line dancing group The Country Roses, said she’d seen such high demand for her classes she had to add an intermediate level. She notes that Londoners – quick on their feet – are uniquely good at picking up the steps: “Londoners use a lot of footwork just getting round the city,” she reasons.
Indeed, the next 45 minutes are almost as chaotic as a Clapham commute, as too many people than should be on a dancefloor knee slap, grape vine and foot scuff in near-enough unison. It was the most endorphins my friends and I had experienced since Just Dance 4 came out, which is fitting, in a way. Country music, after all, is about nostalgia – for the past, for family, for an imagined home in West Virginia, or perhaps for Chiswick.
Anna Moloney is deputy comment and features editor at City AM
This piece is published in City AM The Magazine, Winter edition, distributed at major Tube stations and available to pick up from The Royal Exchange