Wayne Hancock
A-Town Blues
Bloodshot Records BS 080


by William Michael Smith

My home is on a road adorned with neon
Places that I've been most of my life
But no matter how hard I jump in the honky tonks I'm playin'
Them A-Town blues still come around at night

If Wayne Hancock, one of the most distinctive and instantly recognizable voices in Americana music today, knows anything it is the road. On his first release for Bloodshot Records, Hancock has dropped much of his rockabilly side and stays on the country road directly through the center of Hank Williams territory. More than on any other Hancock recording, A-Town Blues finds Hancock mining deep into his Williams vein on both the songwriting and playing.

With Lloyd Maines behind the control console, Hancock and his single-minded band of Austin pickers have assembled both an homage to and a celebration of Williams, of the antique sound, and of the eternal subject matter of the honky tonk genre. And this one is done in A-Town (that's Austin, folks) quick and dirty the way records used to be done: cut in twenty hours and mixed in two days for under $10,000. As Robbie Fulks, who is no stranger to recording in a hurry has observed, the musicians and engineers have to be first rate to cut such an "on-the-fly" record.

No one else in Americana (or country music or whatever you want to call what Hancock does) so authentically recreates the vintage antique sound and feel. There will be those who accuse Hancock of slavishly copying Williams' style or being simply a retro act, but serious analysis of Hancock's work belies both of these assumptions. While there is no denying the Hank Williams influence on and in Hancock's music and his vocals, this is no copycat act. No less an expert on Williams than his grandson, Hank III, has said that no one in Nashville can sing like Hancock. Period. Hancock has indeed studied The Master and absorbed his every nuance and subtlety, but Hancock's art goes much deeper than simple rote regurgitation of the core ideas of Williams or imitation of Williams' unique vocal mannerisms. Hancock has mastered the subject matter and the sound and, like any brilliant student, has expanded and extended the core material and made it his own. While Hancock may use the Williams' forms and traits, he has written some genuinely true and current lyrics for this latest release.

The A-Town Blues set consists primarily of road songs that are obviously the product of the traveling band life that Hancock's increasingly popular ensemble lives as they traverse the country gig after gig. While they don't cover Hank Snow's "I've Been Everywhere," it certainly wouldn't be out of place in this set of road songs which includes the titles "Life's Lonesome Road," "Man of the Road," "Track 49," and "Railroad Blues." The other Hancock songs tend to be about loves missed or loves lost due to being a traveling man: "Sands of Time," "Every Time," "and Happy Birthday, Julie." There is even a classic tearjerker about a lover who was killed on "Route 23."

Hancock's musicians add brilliantly to the authenticity. Steel guitarist Jeremy Wakefield, guitarists Tony Lake and Dave Biller, and bassists Ric Ramirez and Shawn Supra show a complete mastery of the antique Williams vibe, yet their playing is fresh, inventive, and unselfconscious. (As with Williams' recordings, there are no drums on the album.) There is none of the tongue-in-cheek cynicism that often is evident in retro style playing. These are musicians making a sound, not musicians mimicking a sound. While on most of the tunes the band sticks doggedly to the distinct Williams beat and Wakefield augments the songs with faithful reproduction of steel player Don Helms' playing style and tone, it would be wrong to accuse them of imitating the Williams sound as Hancock doesn't use fiddle where Williams was always accompanied by fiddler Jerry Rivers on record.

There are a few cuts where, while they don't deviate much, they do leave the familiar Williams' sound. While never straying far or leaving the boundaries of country music, Hancock's band delivers both bluesy and swinging tunes with consummate skill and subtlety. On "Miller, Jack and Mad Dog," a brief sermon on the evils of drinking and driving, Hancock and his troops maintain a country feel but veer the country vehicle across the line into rockabilly. Of course, any careful listening to Williams reveals that he could manage that same trick on the right tune.

Miller, Jack and Mad Dog will do you every time
But they're no good for stayin' to the right side of that line
If Johnny Law don't get you, somebody else could die
So do yourself a favor, don't go drivin' while you're high

"Track 49" is another blue-collar countrified tune with some jump and jive in it. The mournful narrator finds his salvation in the railroad life.

Well I used to be a loser and I almost lost my handle on life
Yeah, I spent my nights in darkness, searching for an end to my strife
Yeah, then I heard them horns a-blastin' and it's makin' me high
Like the fireworks a-flyin' on the fourth of July
Ain't worried about nothin' now
Down on Track 49

Hancock has included some choice covers on A-Town Blues. In keeping with the antique veneer on Hancock's work, the covers are genuine antiques. Hancock polishes and preserves Jimmy Rodgers "California Blues" and the wonderful Tin Pan Alley-ish "We Three" is offered in the deepest blue with Wakefield's Hawaiian style steel guitar colorings ("We three aren't even a crowd/That's my echo, my shadow and me"). Hancock gives "Cow Cow Boogie" a deliberate understated jazzy treatment that, with Wakefield's wicked steel solo, is the height of coolness. Wayne has always played upon and projected a hipster/rounder image and "Cow Cow Boogie" ("Singin' his cowboy song was just too much/He got a knocked out Western accent with a Harlem touch/He was raised on loco weed, that cat was what you call a swingin' half breed/Singin' his cow cow boogie in the strangest kind of way") and "Viper" ("Dream about a reefer 5 feet long/ A mighty mess but not too strong/ You'll be high but not for too long/ If you're a viper") won't do anything to lessen that image. The band's icy cool swing rendition of "Viper" has just the stoney 1920's hipster vibe such a tune requires.

There is much to admire in Hancock's work: his authenticity, his attention to detail, his unwavering devotion to the best of the past, and his intention to preserve and present the music of the past and make it a vital part of the contemporary scene. Just like our most valuable antique furnishings, books, or works of art, there is an appeal in Hancock's work that cuts across generational lines, possibly as far across them as any music in the marketplace today. With A-Town Blues, Wayne Hancock and his Austin crew have fashioned another album that will only solidify their reputation as one of the most genuine, authentic and hip bands around. And while they may ply their trade out of Austin, they keep the man from Montgomery's flame alive with their sound and lyrics like these.

I can put on a clean shirt every mornin'
I can wear seven different kinds of shoes
I can get in my cab and drive all across this country
But I just can't seem to lose them A-town blues

* Wayne "The Train" Hancock has all the "Railroad Blues" you need at www.bloodshotrecords.com . And all the "A-Town Blues" too.





Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

 
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