Reel 2 Reel 4 Real Ray Wylie Hubbard

• 1 Cassette Mix Tape 05:18
• 2 El Diablo Esta Ganando 03:26
• 3 A Murder of Crows 03:46
• 4 Look What the Cat Drug In 02:43
• 5 Dog or Wolf 03:40
• 6 Tip Your Hat to the Black Crow 03:11
• 7 Gods Playing Poker 04:42
• 8 Cobwebs 04:46
• 9 She Plays "Crazy Mama" 04:08
• 10 The Night 04:27
• Total Runtime 40:07

Info for Reel 2 Reel 4 Real

It’s no disrespect to the man to not believe, in part or in whole, every word that Ray Wylie Hubbard writes, sings, or speaks — and frankly, he’d probably respect you a little less if you did. As celebrated songwriters of the outlaw poet/down-home-country-blues persuasion go, Hubbard’s credibility is unimpeachable. And to be fair, even as a somewhat notorious raconteur, his overall truthiness is a lot more bankable than your average politician or fundamentalist grifter. But fold your cards every time he goes all in across a table from you, or swallow as fact every nugget of wisdom he sharpens into verse or stretches into a yarn without catching the gleam in his eye or wry tell between the lines, and odds are you’ve been played.

But honestly, that’s all just part of what makes Hubbard so damn fun.

“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,’” the Americana legend 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.”

No matter how many awards and Hall of Fame inductions others might honor him with (he’s a member of both the Austin Music HOF and the Texas Heritage Songwriters HOF), Hubbard never swaggers or sings his own praises without keeping his tongue planted firmly in cheek. But after brushing aside his bluff with a chuckle, Hubbard gets real. “I am very proud of it,” he answers sincerely. “Everybody that played on it put a lot of work into it, and it just felt right doing it. I’m very grateful.”

Ray Wylie Hubbard, vocals, guitar
Lucas Hubbard, guitar
Jonathan Tyler, guitar
Bukka Allen, keyboards, accordion
John Michael Schoepf, bass
Kyle Schneider, drums

Ray Wylie Hubbard
is the secret handshake amongst those who know. Earthy, real, funky, unabashed, his records have been swapped and played on the road by everyone from Blackberry Smoke and Georgia Satellites to Black Stone Cherry. “Snake Farm” alone could be the red-blooded touring male’s reality-based point of connection. That passion for the man who’s as much a renegade poet as a roadhouse saint brought together an eclectic mix of guests for Co-Starring, his first ever high-profile label release. Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, Ronnie Dunn, Don Was, Larkin Poe, Pam Tillis and The Cadillac Three were just a few who clamored to jam, sing and generally be in the studio with the wizened icon.

The Austin Music and Eric Church-inducted Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Famer was born in Soper, Oklahoma, went to high school with cosmic cowboy Michael Martin Murphey and spent his summers playing folk music in Red River, New Mexico. It all added to an iconoclastic, hell-bent for truths and textures in writing about the way outlaws live – and added to his outlier bona fides that he made 16 albums without ever signing to a major label.

That’s all about to change for the go-to songwriter for Lucinda Williams, Hayes Carll, Pat Green, Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings, Slaid Cleaves and Willie Nelson. Whether it’s bluegrass/folk legend Peter Rowan on the tender “Hummingbird,” emerging Nashville renegade Ashley McBryde on the tough girl homage “Outlaw Blood,” SiriusXM femme fatales Paula Nelson and Elizabeth Cook on the randy “Drink ‘Til I See Double” or the trippy rocker Aaron Lee Tasjan on the elegiac “Rock Gods,” Co-Starring is a supple, musky affair.

This album contains no booklet.