There’s an unnecessary reliance with comparisons in the world of music when trying to market musicians to the masses. That’s the main problem. It’s about the marketing, not the music. There’s no shortage of press releases and one-sheet biographies from public relations firms and band management professionals heralding their musicians as some carefully orchestrated hybrid of already established musicians. This mentality unfortunately bleeds over into music criticism and music journalism. So you read things similar to:
"Musician A has the soul of Jimi Hendrix, the heart of Josh Groban, and the edginess of Bon Scott,” or “Musician B is what you’d get if Pat Benatar and Patti Smith beat the crap out of Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell with a guitar and punctuated the carnage with a simultaneous mic drop.”
This is how they do it. And they do it well. Who with even the slightest ounce of curiosity and love of music wouldn’t buy into this (literally) and want to take a listen? Who hasn’t fallen for hyperbolic descriptions like these and purchased an album or two hoping to capture the unbelievable magic that’s promised before it becomes yesterday’s news? It’s lazy marketing and lazy journalism, but it’s also lazy listening. It works because many music fans don’t want to put forward the effort to discover music on their own. Maybe they’re even a little afraid to stray from their listening comfort zone, a barrier much of the music listening public has played a large part in building itself.
Honorary Texas singer and songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard (he was born in Oklahoma, but spent his formative years in Texas playing with and learning from the best) is one of those musicians who doesn’t have a problem stepping over or ducking under that yellow caution tape marking the comfort zone barrier others don’t dare or desire to cross. Hubbard brings with him across that line a musical style that could be called laid back rebellion, if you were deadest on picking some kind of defining label to coddle the masses. When you see a Ray Wylie Hubbard show live, you’ll find a combination of authentic country, rebel Texas rock and roll, and blues injected with witty and engaging tales along the way about his life experiences, troubadour adventures, and musical influences. All of these ingredients have given birth to a lifetime of colorful stories and a library of timeless songs that aren’t confined to a specific genre.
Hubbard’s personalized approach to music and life were in full display when he came through Houston and performed his second show of a two night gig at Main Street Crossing in Tomball, Texas. You could call it a two-night play-over if you love to fiddle with the power and flexibility of words as much as the veteran musician and songwriter. Hubbard took the stage without a structured set list to speak of, the musician’s equivalent of working without a net. It’s a testament to the confidence and comfort he has in his craft and in himself as an artist. It’s an approach that offers an element of surprise (a characteristic sorely missing from the music landscape, all genres included) for the fans and possibly even Hubbard himself. There’s a sense of exhilaration for everyone involved not knowing what 's coming next until it comes. Joined by his son Luke on guitar and Kyle Schneider on drums, Hubbard played what he was feeling at Main Street Crossing, as he probably always does, with no barriers or constraints to interfere with that moment when the worlds of the musician and music fan converge.
He began the show with “Rabbit” from “Snake Farm” (2006). It’s a song with a contagiously enticing riff, which grabs you on first listen. In a little more than three minutes, it tells you all you need to know (without comparing him to other musicians) about who Ray Wylie Hubbard is and his perspective on life and music:
“Between the devil and the deep blue sea, that’s where I am, I don’t know what that means…”
It’s a lyric that could easily define Hubbard’s unencumbered, free-floating, but satisfying juxtaposition to the music genre spectrum and the universe, where he has publicly mused, he “hopes God grades on a curve.” Hubbard, like everyone else, is far from perfect, and he’s accepted this truth and moved on as he continues to live life and make music the best way he can, his way. If Hubbard was asked early on in his career whether he thought he was going to make it as a musician with his unconventional approach to his craft, you can almost hear him echoing the words of the title character of this song:
“Well, I got to.”
When it comes to the music itself, “Rabbit” narrows it all down to the obvious, which often hides in plain sight from many well-meaning musicians and music fans. It’s one of his many musically self-referential shout-outs to those who have influenced him, or at the very least, they have lived, sweat, and bled the same profession he has chosen as his lifelong calling. Hubbard shared the secret to good music, a revelation passed down by a rock and roll legend. It just needs to sound good above anything else:
“If it's in the groove, everybody loves it. Howlin' Wolf said that.”
With his philosophy and point of view exposed up front, Hubbard went into the title song of “Snake Farm” the nasty sounding (and it pretty much is) tune about a past indulgence of the female persuasion. He playfully broke it to the audience four verses in that he forgot to mention the song was a sing-a-long. The Main Street crowd did it’s best to chime in on short notice, and Hubbard admitted at the song’s end, it wasn’t exactly “Kumbaya” but it’s the best he’s got. It’s a mischievous wit he displayed throughout the performance.
This playful humor resurfaced during his recounting of the story of his grandfather summoning him from his death bed in an effort to sell (yes, sell) Hubbard his cherished guitar, which Ray Wylie had coveted since his youth. Hubbard confessed how bad he felt about this life changing event, then quickly added, this was because he had written his dying grandfather a hot check for the instrument. He told the audience about the time Ronnie Dunn of Brooks & Dunn called him out of the blue. Hubbard unintentionally dissed the country singer by irritably asking if he was the one in the hat, because he thought it was one of his friends pulling a prank on him. Hubbard also facetiously proclaimed to the Tomball crowd his belief that country music hasn’t been the same since Johnny Cash quit popping pills. He went on to reminisce about the time he saw Cash play an amazing hour and a half set around the time Cash had been busted for trying to bring amphetamines back from Mexico. Hubbard added parenthetically, Cash had played that set in only forty-five minutes. Hubbard also compared his own motivation for honoring a request he’d received that night at Main Street Crossing to having been upset when he once saw Bob Dylan live and he didn’t play “Masters of War.” Hubbard quickly clarified, maybe Dylan had played it, and he just didn’t recognize it (a jab at Dylan’s increasing incoherence over the years). There’s probably some truth and a little embellishment for creative effect to Hubbard’s anecdotes, but his renegade persona, gives hope to the idea that his stories happened pretty much how he tells them. If not, that’s okay. He’s a storyteller after all, and he can tell an entertaining story.
Hubbard’s performance wasn’t just about laughs, but even his more personal songs had a shot of humor to dilute the honesty and make it easier to swallow. He sang about some of the bad decisions he's made over the years and how they culminated into one good one, the creation of his nuclear family (which includes his son and guitarist Luke) in “Mother Blues.” He ended the tune with some of that honesty to balance the humorous narrative that preceded it with his personal realization later in life that the days he keeps his gratitude for things (such as his family) higher than his expectations, he has really good days. Hubbard showed he’s just as much of a music fan as a musician as he rattled off a virtual who’s who of musical pioneers and influences in “Name Dropping.” He also gave a peek inside the mechanics and the soul of country blues music in “Down Home Country Blues.” He called upon the transformative power of music to turn even the most passive listener into an active participant with the fan favorite country anthems “Screw You, We’re From Texas” and “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mothers.” He played a cover of fellow Texas musician James McMurtry’s “Choctaw Bingo,” a vividly descriptive dysfunctional family reunion tune. Hubbard even practiced some impromptu parental discretion by proxy, pausing to instruct a youngster, stage right to cover his ears during the song’s one explicit verse. It was a case of Hubbard just helping to do his part to ensure the show remained non-dysfunctional family friendly.
Hubbard ended the show with “Stone Blind Horses” from his latest CD, “Ruffian’s Misfortune.” It’s a poignant, soul-searching ballad of a once restless soul at peace with his life choices and ready to face the metaphorical music when it finally plays. The tune was a fitting closing to the Main Street Crossing show, and it’s an introspective concluding track to his new CD. “Ruffian’s Misfortune” is a ten-track hymnal for all the spiritual ruffians in the world who desire substance in what they believe. It’s for those who consider music their religion and their prophets, the flesh and blood musicians like Ray Wylie Hubbard and the many other musical icons from the familiar to the obscure who live and breathe in the vivid imagery of the CD. “Ruffian’s Misfortune” offers real world honesty and the tangible to those lost, derailed or unsure in life. For the ruffians and the spiritually displaced, Hubbard offers a glimmer of hope and the notion of a casual, relatable afterlife of sorts “somewhere above the yonder” with “Barefoot in Heaven.” It’s a bluesy, gospel, optimistic wish for a paradise for all the metaphorical “wild young cowboys, old drunks, paramours, and thieves,” where you can kick off your shoes and dance and revel in the spirit of the music for eternity just as in life. It doesn’t get any better than this. Imagine a nirvana created by a god who grades on a curve, where a C and maybe even a D doesn’t prevent admission as long as you did your best to live honestly and be kind to others along the way. It’s Ray Wylie Hubbard being Ray Wylie Hubbard. True to his character, on “Ruffian’s Misfortune,” he’s still ducking underneath that barrier which often obscures logic and honesty, and he’s seeing the world and writing about it with open eyes and an open mind, instead of the way it’s marketed by those with something to gain.
If you still can’t or won’t cross that barrier when it comes to trying on music that fits your sensibilities, and you need your music marketed and spoon fed to you in order to stay grounded in your familiar world, then this pitch is for you. Ray Wylie Hubbard is a little Bob Dylan (except Hubbard has become more coherent with age and time), a touch of Shel Silverstein, a dollop of Garrison Keillor, a strong dose of Johnny Cash, and a whole lot of Ray Wylie Hubbard crammed into the same elevator. Except, Hubbard gets off the elevator by himself on a separate floor and takes the stairs the rest of the way up. One of his fellow elevator passengers shouts after him, “You gonna make it up all those stairs?” Hubbard shouts determinedly over his shoulder, “Well, I got to.”
For more information about Ray Wylie Hubbard, you can visit his website, like his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter and YouTube.
Thank you to Brian O’Neal at conqueroo for providing a digital preview of “The Ruffian’s Misfortune” and a ticket to the show at Main Street Crossing. It’s always a pleasure to experience and share great local music with others.