There is more to Ray Wylie Hubbard than his signature ’70s song “Redneck Mother.”
The Texan songwriting icon has just released his latest CD “ The Grifters Hymnal, ” and it is a beauty. It is chock full of Hubbard’s gritty stories, some brilliant wordplay and some superb blues mixed with Hubbard‘s Jack Kerouac-style rambling stream of consciousness lyrics which combine his wry wit with spoken word, blues, folk and country stylings.
Throughout he muses about war, God, church, faith, his own past, Fox News, Jimmy Perkins, his favourite guitars and name drops his favourite bands, sometimes all in the same song.
He plays some superb slide guitar on his own, but calls on a crack band of session aces including Audley Freed, a renown songwriter best known for playing with the Black Crowes, to add spice to Hubbard’s already spicy gumbo.
He even recruits Ringo Starr to add some guitar, vocals, shakers, cymbals and hand claps on a cover of Starr’s “Coochy Coochy,” one of the more blues infused numbers.
“The Grifter’s Hymnal” continues more on the blues bent Hubbard has been on recently.
He starts off with the short, but sweet “Coricidin Bottle,” which is reminiscent of John Lee Hooker.
Hubbard’s son Lucas, plays lead guitar on a couple songs on the CD and even ends up being part of the autobiographical “Mother Blues,” which tells the story of Hubbard’s wild early years in a Dallas club called Mother Blues full of adventures with a stripper girlfriend and a Gold Top Les Paul and ends with him marrying the door girl of the Dallas club.
Out of all of the lyrical gems hidden throughout the Cd, “ And the days that I keep my gratitude greater than my expectations, well I have really good days,” is the last line of one of the best songs on the CD, if not one of the best he’s ever written.
“Grifter’s Hymnal” is such an addictive listen, I can’t get enough of it.
Some of my favourites are “Coricidin Bottle, which gets things off to a rocking start, “New Year’s Eve at the Gates of Hell,” Train Yard,” “Coochy, Coochy,” Henhouse,” and of course “Mother Blues.”
Artist: Ray Wylie Hubbard
Genre: folk/ blues
Record label: Bordello Records/ WylieWorld Music
