{"id":3895,"date":"2012-03-21T10:10:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T16:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=3895"},"modified":"2012-03-21T10:10:19","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T16:10:19","slug":"hillbilly-highway-take-heed-of-the-grifters-hymnal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2012\/03\/21\/hillbilly-highway-take-heed-of-the-grifters-hymnal\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillbilly Highway – Take heed of the Grifter’s Hymnal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Sheldon Birnie<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ray Wylie Hubbard is a goddamn beauty, bottom line.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never heard Hubbard\u2019s particular brand of \u201cdeep-groove-in-the-blood-masterless-samurai-folk-poet-blues,\u201d then it\u2019s about time you did. I\u2019m sitting here, in my boxer shorts with a pair of buckskin moccasins over my ugly toes, digging an advance copy of his latest platter, The Grifter\u2019s Hymnal<\/em>, which drops March 27. Man, is it good.<\/p>\n

The tunes of Grifter\u2019s Hymnal<\/em> are classic Hubbard. Tales of strippers, cards, chickens, guitars set to open-tuned blues riffs and spiced up throughout with literary allusions to the Bible, the old god\u2019s of the blues and rock n roll, and modern prophets like Martin Luther King Jr. On the opener, \u201cCoricidin Bottle,\u201d <\/a>Hubbard \u201clays down a groove like monkey getting off.\u201d \u201cNew Years Eve at the Gates of Hell\u201d sees Hubbard playing the Dante game, dragging the rock gods and the record execs that made\/leached-off them through the river Styx. \u201cCoochy Coochy\u201d features none other than Ringo Starr<\/a>, a big Hubbard fan himself, rocking along and getting down and dirty with Ray and the boys.<\/p>\n

I first come onto Ray Wylie the way many likely done before, by way of Jerry Jeff Walker\u2019s version of Ray\u2019s \u201cUp Against the Wall, Redneck Mother\u201d<\/a> and on the recommendation of Hayes Carll<\/a>. I dug up his 2005 beauty, Delirium Tremolos<\/em> and became a convert to the Gospel of Ray. The opener to that disc remains one of my favourite songs of all time, and a definite comfort to any of apostles riding the Hillbilly Highway. The sprawling bookend to \u201cThe Beauty Way\u201d<\/a>, \u201cChoctaw Bingo\u201d<\/a> is to me a modern southwestern equivalent to some of Dylan\u2019s mid-60s long-formers, like \u201cSad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,\u201d<\/a> but about the American family on the skids rather than a wife.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Hubbard\u2019s most recognized song, or certainly the most recognized in his modern oeuvre, would be the greasy-as-all-hell ode to strip clubs \u201cSnake Farm.\u201d<\/a> Even my French-Canadian pal Matthieu, who can barely speak English, has got the chorus to this bad-boy locked and loaded in his cerebrum, and can sing along at the drop of case of beer. That whole disc is full of deep grooves and odes to bacon grease, Mexico, rock n roll, and guitars. Essential listening when riding the white lines in search of salvation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Having said all that, I don\u2019t know much of Ray Wylie\u2019s back catalogue, but for the gem I dug out of the Turntable in Victoria<\/a> a couple years back. When I asked Hubbard, at last year\u2019s Folk Fest, if he was going to play any of Cowboy Twinkies<\/em> during this stay in Bird\u2019s Hill, he just laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t remember much of those songs,\u201d he said. \u201cI was in another dimension, then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the disc has got a couple good numbers to it, as I\u2019m certain most of his mid-70s through early 90s \u201clost years\u201d records do. I just can\u2019t tell you for sure, because I\u2019ve never come across them, at record stores or on the pirate seas of the Interweb. (If you\u2019ve got a copy of Loco Gringo\u2019s Lament<\/em>, slide it my way!)<\/p>\n

If I haven\u2019t impressed upon you the wealth of talent ol\u2019 Ray Wylie Hubbard possesses by this time, friends, I don\u2019t know what else to say. Just look the man up already and pray to the Old Gods that he makes his way up to Winnipeg again soon. The old boy\u2019s got some serious wisdom to share. Amen to that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Sheldon Birnie Ray Wylie Hubbard is a goddamn beauty, bottom line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[214,432,949],"class_list":["post-3895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","tag-country-music","tag-hillbilly-highway","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}