Ray Wylie Hubbard

With [Crusades Of The Restless Knights], the deep, far-reaching follow-up to his remarkable 1997 Philo/Rounder debut [Dangerous Spirits], Hubbard has continued to stretch his ambitious musical canvas even as the soulful spirituality of his lyrics (generously laced with wry humor) continues to explore darkly fertile soil. Add to those two gems 1992's self-released [Lost Train Of Thought] and 1994's [Loco Gringo's Lament] on Dejadisc, and the ol' boy has racked up four straight wall-to-wall winners which deliver in spades on his long, lofty promise.

Ray Wylie gained unwieldy notoriety in 1973 when his (supremely uncharacteristic) "Up Against The Wall, Redneck Mother" emerged as a pin-headed "outlaw country" battle cry for Jerry Jeff Walker. The in-your-face novelty track paid it's fair share of rent and, ultimately, garnered Hubbard a Warner/Reprise record contract in 1975, but the tapes of the ensuing [Ray Wylie Hubbard & The Cowboy Twinkies] LP were so disfigured by the label's Nashville studio contingent as to render them virtually unrecognizable to Ray and his band.

"If you listen to it again," Ray Wylie says of the Twinkies fiasco, "there's two records--there's the one we made and the one they made after we did it. When we got the tape of it, we actually cried when we heard it. And we couldn't go out and tour to support it, so that's why we didn't do any other records for a long period of time. It was pretty rough." In short, the two things for which Hubbard was best known by the mid-'70s were both so misrepresentative of his talent and artistic direction that they were almost counterproductive to his career. Such, as they say, is the stuff of Legend...

Still, Hubbard emphasizes, "We hung in there, and I've always been able to make a living as a working musician. So I played honky-tonks and had different bands, but I got into drugs and alcohol and abused that, and then I never really could get anything together. I finally got clean and sober eleven years ago with some help. I quit on my 41st birthday and I haven't done any of it since.

"About a year after all that," he remembers, "I just couldn't figure out what was goin' on. I was still playin' bad joints and scufflin' and really couldn't get it goin'--even after a year or two of being sober." His self-taught guitar playing, which had served him well enough in his blurry roadhouse days, had become a block to unlocking his full songwriting potential, yet he was embarrassed to take lessons at age 43.

And at 43, I really learned how to play the guitar, and then I started to really learn about writing songs. I've always like and admired Townes, Guy, Billy Joe, Michael Murphy and Willie Nelson--all those Texas writers--but they didn't really influence my writing.
Shortly after completing guitar lessons with Dallas fingerpicker Sam Swank, Ray Wylie Hubbard's daunting songwriting dam just burst. With his hands at last able to realize and deliver the songs churning in his head, Hubbard began cranking out a stream of some of finest and most varied songs anywhere. Incorporating folk, blues, country and rock with such care and craft that the seams rarely show, Ray Wylie Hubbard has spent the '90s giving life, blood, flesh and substance to the nebulous legend he'd always been.

Produced by Hubbard and the remarkable Lloyd Maines, [Crusades Of The Restless Nights] contains ten startling Ray Wylie compositions ("After The Harvest" is co-written by vocal foil Lisa Mednick) which erase the line between waking and dreaming to explore a broad spectrum of human behaviors and motivators. Hubbard's gruff, full-bodied voice is as unvarnished and nakedly honest as they come, and the exemplary roots band of guitarists Stephen Bruton and Terry Ware, bassist Glenn Fukunaga and drummer Paul Pearcy support Ray Wylie's elegant acoustic with a deep, dynamic cushion. Esteemed songbird Patty Griffin graces several tracks with her gorgous harmonies and Eamon McGlocklin's haunting fiddle squirms through "The River Bed."

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