Back Roads And Big Stories

Ray Wylie Hubbard isn't hard to find these days. Check him out in the latest Eric Church video for the song "Desperate Man."

"They needed a bootlegger and low-life smuggler type," Hubbard says. "Somebody said, 'Call Hubbard.' I didn't even have to act."

That gig was an easy choice for Hubbard. He wrote the song alongside Church.

"Eric called me up and said he wanted to write a song titled 'Desperate Man,'" Hubbard shares. "I told him I was so desperate one time that I went to a fortune teller, and she told me I didn't even have one chance. I said that will be the last verse of the song."

"Fortuneteller told me

'No more last chances

'You got no future at all.'

"Oh but I ain't listenin'

"To a black-hearted gypsy

"Nailed a crucifix to a different wall."

Hubbard's latest full-length release, "Tell the Devil I'm Gettin' There as Fast as I Can," came last August.

But now he's testing the musical waters by producing his next projects as singles. EZ$NTX ("Easy Money Down In Texas") was just released, he says.

"I was talking to some of these young kids in Texas, and they wanted to know how you get started. I said, 'You get a guitar and start a band.'

"And I invite all those young bands in Oklahoma and Arkansas to come down here, too. It's easy money. You'll enjoy the income."

Hubbard has been spending his days traveling, playing "a lot of fun gigs" and writing.

"Roger Miller used to say sometimes writing is like an old cat having kittens -- she just crawls under the porch by herself and has kittens. Sometimes you just have to do that."

But Hubbard hasn't been totally alone. He has written lately with Ronnie Dunn, Tyler Bryant and Liz Rose. "This old cat is still writing," he says.

Hubbard is a word smith, maybe a word master. His songs are filled with very descriptive phrases that flash a vivid picture in the listener's mind but aren't heard in most people's daily vocabulary.

An Okie on the road from Tushamingo -- "Bad on Fords."

Make like Ray Charles, and hit the road, Jack -- "Lucifer and the Fallen Angels."

We hit it off like a metaphor. Like a metaphor for a hydrogen bomb. We was enriched uranium, super critical mass. We was a chain reaction -- "Mother Blues."

He drives a '57 GMC pickup truck. Got a gun rack, "A goat roper needs love, too" sticker -- "Redneck Mother."

"I'm entertaining myself, mostly," Hubbard says of his words. Despite the popularity of pop country, Hubbard's audiences "dig lyrics with depth and weight."

Hubbard says his albums -- and he still calls them albums -- are not concept albums but like a movie that tells a story from the first song to the end.

And Arkansas is a great gig for Hubbard. "They're very knowledgeable about music and what's going on, from blues to alt rock."

Asked which song he enjoys performing most, Hubbard replies, "The encore." Then he gives a great big chuckle.

"Every song works for me," he amends. When he sings "Redneck Mother," he finds it fun when fans sing along. And he likes to rock out with "Wanna Rock and Roll" and "Snake Farm." Then he likes to add songs like "Drunken Poet's Dream" with more lyrical weight, he says.

"I feel very fortunate to just kind of write and travel around the country," the 71-year-old says.

NAN What's Up on 10/14/2018