Ray Wylie Hubbard Enlightenment Rar
Sep 08, 2013 Ray Wylie Hubbard, killer closing, John the Revelator, A) Enlightenment. Apr 27, 2010 - Ray Wylie Hubbard: A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint There Is No C) North Fork Sound Legend Of The Month Roky Erickson.
Ray Wylie Hubbard A. Enlightenment, B.
Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) Bordello It doesn’t much matter what you want to call it: alt-country, Americana, Deadneck music. If you need to pin a title on tunes that are a little too rough and real and strange and true to be mainstream anything, then go for it. Me, I’m not going to worry about such matters. I’m too busy sitting here by the woodstove thinking that it’s only a few hours into the new year and I’ve already heard what’s bound to be one of 2010’s best releases in that alt-neck realm. Or the cosmic country hippie music category. Or the tie-dyed-and-blues-drenched Muddy-Waters-meets-Doug- Sahm rock-n-roll-folk-poetry-through-a-raspy-tube-amp territory. The point is, if Ray Wylie Hubbard’s new A.
Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) isn’t stuck on a bunch of “Best-Of-2010” lists 12 months from now, something’s wrong. (The only problem I have with the critter is the name, which is clever as hell, but too long for me to repeat 4 or 5 times in this review. Henceforth, I’ll be referring to this album as A.
Enlightenment – okay? Okay.) For those who tuned in late, ol’ Ray Wylie could’ve come and gone a long time ago, burning out in a fiery spiral and ending up best remembered as the answer to the trivia question, “Who penned Jerry Jeff Walker’s 1973 hit ‘Up Against The Wall Redneck Mother’?” Although he definitely lived the “outlaw country artist” lifestyle in the ’70s and ’80s, there was more to Hubbard and his music than being effed-up while wearing a big hat. We can thank the late Stevie Ray Vaughan for inspiring him to get cleaned up in 1987; as Hubbard puts it, “He saved my life.” If Hubbard was a catalyst for Something Different in the early years of his career, he has become a downright Deadneck Dalai Lama over the last couple of decades, inspiring peers and younger artists alike with his talent. For all of Hubbard’s rough edges and raunch, there has always been an underlying foundation of wisdom and humor to his writing.
Sobriety only made Hubbard’s wit sharper, his guitar playing greasier, his appreciation of life that much greater – and his ability to write about the gonzo side of things as solid as you’d expect from a card-carrying traveler of that world. Enlightenment takes flight right off the bat with the ghostly stomp of the title track. A spin on Poe’s “The Raven”, Hubbard’s tale finds a black sparrow haunting him while acoustic guitar, mandolin, and harmonica weave around each other over a pounding shake-the-floorboards-of-the-cabin-loose beat.
Ray Wylie’s voice is just as real as he is, crackling with every mile he’s traveled, but dead-nuts-on when it comes to conveying the emotion of the moment. “Drunken Poet’s Dream” sounds just like it reads, starting off slow and shaky with the strange and out-of-control stuff lurking just beneath the surface.
With lyrics that would do Robert Hunter proud and a band that gets it following his every lurch, Hubbard growls his tale of failure pissing on the shoes of brilliance. My harmonica’s got a busted reed My lips are chapped and about to bleed She says, that’s nothing when she was a kid She danced with the dead at the pyramids (Capitalize the “D” in “dead”? It’s a great movie in your head either way.) I’m gonna hollar, and I’m gonna scream I’m gonna get me some mescaline Then I’m gonna rhyme that with gasoline It’s a drunken poet’s dream After the second pass through the chorus, Hubbard lets loose with some just-right harmonica, then turns things over to Gurf Morlix, who fires off a blistering blast of guitar squall. Ron c the c theory. As off-kilter and doomed as it all seems, in the end, there’s hope and salvation for our hero: I got a woman who’s wild as Rome She likes being naked and gazed upon Or something like that. Production on A. Enlightenment was overseen by Hubbard himself, along with George Rieff (who also handles bass chores on the album).