Ray Wylie Hubbard at the Pines...

Live music is starting back up as Covid subsides and the old Pines Theater was packed with an enthusiastic crowd for a Ray Wylie Hubbard show, sponsored by Brookshire Brothers as a part of their 100th anniversary celebration.    

I often wonder how many people really get Ray Wylie. His songwriting references so many things that I would think a person would have have to had some experience with to really understand. Things like flipping the standby switch on a big Fender amp on at sunset and turning it off at dawn. I'd expect you to have a bad habit of taking old beat up guitars and tuning them to open chords and raking a metal slide across the strings. There would be a memory picture in your mind of walking into the Continental Club in Austin when South Congress Street was way down there and seeing Stevie Ray Vaughan leaning against the cigarette machine. The hair would still be standing up on your neck from those lonely midnights when you were alone spinning records by Muddy, Lightenin', Son House and Skip James. Tie all that together by loving a bohemian gypsy woman with a mimosa tree, lizards, love bugs and birds tattooed down her leg. 

Do these things. You will get closer to what Ray's songs are about.      

I've seen Ray a bunch of times. I think my ears are still ringing from the time he played the old Crossroads Club in Nacogdoches backed by Jerry Jeff Walker's Lost Gonzo Band. That must have been the early 1980s or maybe before.  

Ray and the band brought their "A" game to the show tonight. That's his son Lucas on guitar. Kyle is on drums. There is no bass player and with the groove they create the bass is not missed.  

Ray is country. Ray is Rock and Roll. He's got that dead thumb picking style that creates a spooky blues when he leaves the 3rd of the chord out of an alternating bassline picking pattern. His band is locked in the pocket. He's got a gold top Les Paul and you might find a Beatle, an Eagle or other music business stars taking a backing role on his records. Tell us again why you don't have all his records? 

Singer Songwriter Cas Haley opened. He has a great set of pipes and has been a winner on America's Got Talent. 

The Pines has been doing a great job. We had recently seen the band Ranky Tanky there. I look forward to future shows.