Ray Wylie Hubbard (Photo by David McClister)
In 2020, Ray Wylie Hubbard made his major label debut with C-Starring, released by Big Machine Records. The legendary country singer returned to the well in 2022, releasing Co-Starring Too. Now, he’s on tour with a show at City Winery DC on Friday, July 29.
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.
Watch Ray Wylie Hubbard perform his classic “Snake Farm” for Austin City Limits on YouTube:
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.
Recently, that all changed for the go-to songwriter for Lucinda Williams, Hayes Carll, Pat Green, Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings, Slaid Cleaves, and Willie Nelson. Co-Starring is a supple, musky affair.
Ray Wylie Hubbard
w/ Lauren Calve
City Winery
Friday, July 29
Doors @ 8pm
$32/$35/$38/$42
All ages