Hat Check Girl—29 & Gone

2025

Annie Gallup and Peter Gallway can't help but make extraordinary music, lots of it. They each have solo projects in addition to collaborating with other artists, but they seem to bring out the best in each other as Hat Check Girl. Gallup and Gallway’s uniquely expressive vocal styles complement each other and their harmonies are subtle and satisfying. Their beautifully crafted and played songs are clear and uncluttered in your ears. Attention to detail is evident as they deftly shape their sound to match the feel of each song. The title track, “Twenty-Nine and Gone” refers to the night that Hank Williams succumbed to the effects of alcohol and pain killers at the age of twenty-nine while being driven from Montgomery Alabama to Canton Ohio for a gig. This 1953 tragedy resonates for them as performing songwriters and likely for Peter as a licensed counselor. The arrangement is rhythmic and ominous as they sing the chant-like lyrics that echo the words of Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Die.” 

Annie’s “Radio Darling” recalls a doomed affair with disarming wry ambivalence, “If there was a last kiss must have been a first, I don’t remember either,” She wisely sums up the futility of the lovers’ excessive tendencies, “Feeling everything all of the time is no different from feeling nothing at all.”

“The Record Skipped” is funky and playful, sounding at one point like a skipping record. 

The inspiration for "A Lot of Try" may have come from an overheard phrase, but it attains cinematic scope within a few minutes of song. We follow a woman's story through the loss of her father and later the father of her unborn son. She names her son after his late father. We don't know exactly who the narrator is, but it is clear that he is full of love and pride for mother and child. "But there’s a little boy, his mom, and I’m the lucky one." That's a lot of song!

The last song, “Carry You Now,” is about their having to say goodbye when their rescue dog’s time had come. Those of us who have been there will appreciate the reverent spirituality and kindness of this song.
Gallup and Gallway have been blessed with talent, long careers and each other, but really, the blessing is ours. They are still feeling and revealing what they find to be real about being human and we are still listening. —Michael Devlin

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