Ray Wylie Hubbard - Tell The Devil Im Getting There As Fast As I Can (2017)

Ray Wylie Hubbard 70-year-old Oklahoma-born troubadour for his log-cabin Shangri-la in Wimberley, a Texas Hill Country hamlet just outside of Austin announced a new album. Tell the Devil I'm Gettin' There as Fast as I Can isn't a concept album, per se, its songs fit neatly together to chart a Dante-esque journey from Paradise Lost all the way to the final reckoning of "In Times of Cold." "There's a definite beginning, middle, and end to this record," says Hubbard, who's joined on that last song by the ever-exquisite Patty Griffin. "It starts with 'Genesis,' and at the ending, there I am trying to plead my case before the court of heaven, hoping I've got a good lawyer." That wry Ray Wylie wit, can be found in spades here, along with heaps of the patented "grit 'n' groove" that's been a Hubbard hallmark and one of the most oft-imitated but never-equaled signature sounds in all Americana, going back to 2001's Gurf Morlix-produced Eternal and Lowdown and especially since his vicious "Snake Farm" in 2006. Produced by Hubbard himself at The Zone in Dripping Springs, Texas, with his lead-guitar playing son Lucas and drummer Kyle Schneider joined by Jeff Plankenhorn (Dobro and mandolin), Bukka Allen (B3 organ), and both studio owner Mike Morgan and engineer Pat Manskee on bass,.