Ray Wylie Hubbard Announces Reel 2 Reel 4 Real

Photo: Courtesy of Ray Wylie Hubbard

Ray Wylie Hubbard is still making stab-you-in-the-back-alley-with-a-shiv rock & roll at nearly 80 years old. His latest album, Reel 2 Reel 4 Real, is meant to be played loud. Real loud. It’s not just lean and mean but snarly and downright punchy; primer grey Texas garage rock in the proud tradition of the 13th Floor Elevators, Mouse and the Traps, and the True Believers.

Over the course of his long career, Hubbard has written boatloads of richly poetic, hold-their-own-in-any-serious-songwriter-circle stunners like “The Messenger,” “Ballad of the Crimson Kings,” “Dust of the Chase,” and “Stone Blind Horses.” But these songs are all unabashedly for the “Wanna Rock and Roll” set.

Out August 21, Reel 2 Reel 4 Real marks Hubbard’s return to his homegrown Bordello Records — with distribution by Soundly Music/Thirty Tigers — after a two-album major-label joyride on Nashville’s Big Machine Records. “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” details a night of lustful misadventure in Dad’s stolen car set to a soundtrack of Golden Earring, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Seger, with a surrealist animated music video to match. As Hubbard sings, “I drove that Chevy Vega like it was a Pontiac Grand Prix.” What a night. What a morning.

“You know, a lot of artists when they put out a record, they go, ‘This is the best record I’ve done up to this point,’” Hubbard considers sagely after a pause when asked how to best sum up Reel 2 Reel 4 Real, his 20th album in a recording career stretching back to the mid-70s. “But 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.”

Hubbard approached his Bordello homecoming determined to keep things lean and mean. That was the original plan, at least. When sessions began at co-producer Jonathan Tyler’s studio in Austin, the only names on the call sheet this time around were tried-and-true band members — drummer Kyle Schneider, bassist John Michael Schoepf, and, of course, Hubbard’s electric and Resonator guitar-playing son, Lucas — and a small bench of hand-picked ringers, including organ player Bukka Allen, fiddle and mandolin ace Cody Braun of Reckless Kelly, 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.”

“Jonathan’s just a really brilliant producer and a great engineer,” Hubbard continues. “And it was such a treat to record at his place, because he’s got all this really cool old gear in there. In fact, the record’s called Reel 2 Reel 4 Real because I think there were three songs — ‘El Diablo Esta Ganando,’ ‘Dog or Wolf,’ and ‘Tip Your Hat to the Black Crow’ — that we did right to tape. Just hit record and play, you know? And the funny thing is, I actually went in there thinking I was just going to do a demo thing, because we had originally thought about working with some other people. But we walked in and Jonathan had three mics on the drums, and we played it, and I thought, ‘Man!’ I just loved that sound. So we ended up recording eight songs there.”

The final two songs on the album were recorded a world away in Los Angeles, at Mike Campbell’s studio off Ventura Boulevard. As in Mike Campbell of The Dirty Knobs, not to mention Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.

“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,’” explains Hubbard. “So Ringo gave me your number and said, ‘Call him!’ So, what are you doing?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m making a record.’ He said, ‘Well, come out here to L.A. and cut a couple of songs with me!’”

With the two songs recorded with Campbell added to the eight tracked with Tyler back in Texas, Hubbard knew he had himself a helluva record. But still not quite the best record he’d ever heard — or at least not yet. Especially not after its first pass or two through mastering ended up polishing off too many of its sharper edges.

“I called up Gurf and said, ‘Gurf, will you master this?’” says Hubbard.

Gurf as in Gurf Morlix, the guitarist and producer who first worked with Hubbard 25 years ago on Eternal and Lowdown — his sixth album post “honky-tonk fog” and the first to fully baptize him in the muddy waters of grit and groove. Morlix never played a note on Reel 2 Reel, but through his mastering wizardry alone, he was able to open it up and throw just enough growl back into the works to bring it back to... well, Real.

Real enough that upon hearing it again, Hubbard deemed it not just good, but capstone good. “This will probably be my last album,” he says a few months shy of his 80th birthday. “I mean, I still like writing songs. In fact, I’ve got so many damn songs that I don’t know what to do with them, including a really cool one I just wrote with Mike Campbell. But we’re thinking that after putting this album out, we’re just going to throw out singles as I finish them, 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”