At nearly 80, Ray Wylie Hubbard is still cranking out rock & roll meant to be played loud. The Texas songwriting lifer returns August 21 with ‘Reel 2 Reel 4 Real’, his 20th album, a lean and snarly slab of primer-grey garage rock cut in the tradition of the 13th Floor Elevators, Mouse and the Traps, and the True Believers. Hubbard has written plenty of richly poetic stunners over the decades, but this one is built squarely for the “Wanna Rock and Roll” crowd.
The album marks Hubbard’s homecoming to his own Bordello Records, distributed by Soundly Music/Thirty Tigers, after a two-album run on Nashville’s Big Machine. “They treated me great, and did everything they could,” he says, “but it was kind of limited because I’m an old guy. I’m no longer a country hunk, you know?” Lead single “Cassette Mix Tape” tells of a night of lustful misadventure in Dad’s stolen car, soundtracked by Golden Earring, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Seger, complete with a surrealist animated video.
Hubbard walked into co-producer Jonathan Tyler’s Austin studio planning to keep things lean and mean, with only his tried-and-true band on the call sheet: drummer Kyle Schneider, bassist John Michael Schoepf, and his electric and Resonator guitar-playing son Lucas. A small bench of ringers filled it out, including organ player Bukka Allen, Reckless Kelly’s fiddle and mandolin ace Cody Braun, and guitarist Tobin Dale. “Tobin’s a young rock ‘n’ roll guy I met up in Nashville who plays very tasty slide,” Hubbard says. “With him and Lucas, we had our own Keith Richards and Ron Wood kind of thing going.”
The title nods to how the thing got made. Three songs, “El Diablo Esta Ganando,” “Dog or Wolf,” and “Tip Your Hat to the Black Crow,” went straight to tape on Tyler’s cool old gear. “Just hit record and play, you know?” Hubbard says. What started as a demo session turned into eight tracks, after he heard Tyler’s three-mic drum setup and fell for the sound on the spot.
Two more songs came together a world away in Los Angeles, at Mike Campbell’s studio off Ventura Boulevard. The Dirty Knobs leader and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitarist called Hubbard out of the blue. “He said, ‘Ray? It’s Mike Campbell. I was over with Ringo, and your name came up, and I told Ringo I really liked your writing,'” Hubbard recalls. “So Ringo gave me your number and said, ‘Call him!'” Two cuts later, Hubbard had himself a record.
The final piece was the mastering. After a couple of passes sanded off too many of the sharp edges, Hubbard rang Gurf Morlix, the guitarist and producer who first worked with him 25 years ago on ‘Eternal and Lowdown’. Morlix never played a note on the record, but his mastering threw enough growl back into the works to bring it back to real. Hearing it again, Hubbard had his verdict: “I’m not going to say this is the best record I’ve done. I’ll say it’s the best record I’ve ever heard.”
He figures this one might be the last full album. “This will probably be my last album,” he says, a few months shy of 80. “I still like writing songs. In fact, I’ve got so many damn songs that I don’t know what to do with them.” The plan from here is to keep cutting singles as they come and see what happens.
Reel 2 Reel 4 Real Track List:
- “Cassette Mix Tape”
- “El Diablo Esta Ganando”
- “A Murder of Crows”
- “Look What The Cat Drug In”
- “Dog or Wolf”
- “Tip Your Hat to the Black Crow”
- “Gods Playing Poker”
- “Cobwebs”
- “She Plays ‘Crazy Mama'”
- “The Night”