Texas troubadour Ray Wylie Hubbard finds his groove(s)
Ray Wylie Hubbard was taken by surprise last year when he learned that country star Eric Church had dropped his name in the title song of his new album - right between those of Elvis Costello and Jeff Tweedy.
Ray Wylie Hubbard was taken by surprise last year when he learned that country star Eric Church had dropped his name in the title song of his new album - right between those of Elvis Costello and Jeff Tweedy.
As Hubbard recalls, he and his wife were at home in Wimberley, Texas, near Austin, watching a crime drama on TV when he got a text from a friend who was at an awards show where Church was performing "Mr. Misunderstood."
"I told Judy, 'Eric Church just mentioned me in some song at an awards show,' " Hubbard says from his home. "She said, 'Well, we're not changing the channel.' "
The shout-out from Church is indicative of the stature the 69-year-old Hubbard commands among his fellow musicians - the Oklahoma native also has been mentioned in song by Americana singer-songwriter Hayes Carll and the Southern-rock band Blackberry Smoke.
It wasn't always so. By the mid-'80s, Hubbard, who plays the Sellersville Theater on Thursday, seemed destined to be best remembered as the writer of a '70s barroom anthem popularized by Jerry Jeff Walker. As he puts it in his breezy new memoir, A Life . . . Well, Lived: "The reality was that I was just a sloppy drunk playing 'Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother' twice a night in these [expletive] honky-tonks and seedy bars in Fort Worth and Dallas and Oklahoma."
But Hubbard cleaned up in 1987, partly at the urging of his friend Stevie Ray Vaughan, "the first cat I knew that got sober and didn't end up on The 700 Club." Since then, he has risen to the top ranks of sage, stubbornly individualistic Texas troubadours, right up there with real characters such as Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, and Joe Ely.
Hubbard is not afraid to embrace heady subjects and confront big questions. (Not all the time, though. Example: "Screw You, We're from Texas.") But in the unique hoodoo he conjures, he brings everything down to a primal musical and lyrical level, with a gutbucket blend of blues, rock, country, and folk. As he puts it in the memoir: "It all comes down to grit, groove, tone, and taste, as well as being honest, open-minded, and willing."
In fact, music itself and the people who make it are among the songwriter and guitarist's favorite subjects. On his latest album, The Ruffian's Misfortune, he has songs about blues greats Charlie Musselwhite and Jessie Mae Hemphill. On "Chick Singer, Badass Rockin'," he mentions Chrissie Hynde and Joan Jett. Even when he's contemplating the afterlife, in "Barefoot in Heaven," he's most looking forward to hearing Sister Rosetta Tharpe sing when he gets there.
For Hubbard, the genesis of this approach goes back to a decision he made after he got sober.
"I wasn't going to write songs to get Garth Brooks or Tim McGraw or other people to cut them, and I wasn't going to write for a publishing company," he says. "I was just going to try to write the best song I could, even if it wasn't commercial and was kind of weird."
Expanding his musical arsenal also helped.
"I learned that Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, John Lee Hooker fingerpicking, which I loved, but in my 20s and 30s never had the time to learn. And then I learned open tunings, and I learned slide, and I got a mandolin. . . .
"That gives the song a door to come through that wasn't there before."
Of course, he cracks, the freedom to do what he wants these days is made easier by the fact that he sleeps with the president of his record company. He and his wife put out his albums on their own Bordello Records label.
That kind of sly, devilish humor runs throughout Hubbard's songs, as well as the memoir. A Life . . . Well, Lived covers his life's arc in loose, freewheeling fashion. Along the way he describes encounters with friends and admirers from Vaughan to Willie Nelson and Ringo Starr, and his experiences on TV with David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon. (Oh, and he and Ronnie Dunn, of the country duo Brooks and Dunn, have cut a "greasy, Black Crowes-y" album that is in limbo at the moment.) As with the songs, he conveys all this in a wry but earnest manner that's both entertaining and enlightening.
These days, to paraphrase one of his lines, Hubbard has no trouble keeping his gratitude higher than his expectations. He still hits the road regularly with a band that includes his son Lucas, and he's still finding musical inspiration. He plans to record a batch of new songs in the fall.
"I've got some really cool stuff going on for an old cat."
215-854-4641@nickcristiano
Ray Wylie Hubbard, with Caroline Reese, 8 p.m. Thursday at Sellersville Theater, 24 W. Temple Ave., Sellersville. Sold out. 215-257-5808, st94.com.
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Ray Wylie Hubbard, with Caroline Reese
8 p.m. Thursday at Sellersville Theater, 24 W. Temple Ave., Sellersville. Sold out. 215-257-5808, st94.com.
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