From Texas to Tulsa

Folk outlaw Ray Wylie Hubbard returns to Cain’s Ballroom after 40 years

Despite being touted as one of the forefathers of the Texas country music scene, Ray Wylie Hubbard has never considered himself a “country” singer. 

“I’ve never been concerned with being country, I’ve always just done my own thing,” Hubbard told me. “My first record was a folk-rock record and the label made it sound like Nashville. I started out as a folk musician and it’s turned into a blues style, but I’m not country and don't pay any attention to what's coming out of Nashville.” 

This mindset shows on his latest release, The Ruffian’s Misfortune. His 16th in a career that spans five decades, the album blends hill country blues with a storytelling style uniquely his own, though Hubbard, an Okie by birth who got his start in the ‘60s as a folk musician, acknowledges one major influence.

“All roads lead back to Woody Guthrie,” he said. “Growing up in Hugo, Oklahoma, you heard Woody Guthrie and Lefty Frizzell and that was about it …The thing that was remarkable was [Guthrie] had these dark and powerful songs that had a wit and humor about them.” 

Hubbard’s sound has evolved over the years to be less folk and more blues, but his lyrical styling still very much resembles Woody’s, with songs ranging in content from the cooking of crystal meth to salvation and redemption.

“The creative spark, a lot of times, is nourished by pain and hardship, as a result of being in pain, or sadness or despondent or hurt, it triggers the need to create art. Songs that were created as an escape and documentation of it, the Great Depression, all those great songs telling a sad story but giving people a sense of hope and survival. Desperate hardship and art that was breathtaking and significant.”

Hubbard gravitates to modern songwriters like Hayes Carll, James McMurtry and Slaid Cleaves. “I have my little dark kingdom of guys that I listen to, guys like me that are out there doing and writing real songs about real things.”

One member of Hubbard’s “dark kingdom,” singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan, will open the show at Cain's. “Oh man, Aaron, I’m nice to him so when he's playing stadiums maybe he'll let me open for him. He’s just so good and his heart's in it for the right reason. He’s humble and funny and cool and has great songs. Plus with him opening I have to go out there and try.”

Hubbard will play Cain’s Ballroom on May 12, a show he’s particularly excited about—the last time he performed at the venue was nearly 40 years ago. A flyer for a show from Hubbard’s 1976 tour with his band The Cowboy Twinkies can be found on the wall next to Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ, which as far as he recalls was his last appearance at Easton and Main. 

It’s fitting that Hubbard’s Tulsa show is right up the road from Woody Guthrie’s archives. The Woody Guthrie Center sits near the center of a downtown to a city that has in the last decade reawakened its sense of local pride and musical heritage, and there’s frequent talk of the city being the next Austin or Nashville. On this topic, Hubbard has some frank advice for Tulsa.

“The thing that happened with Austin, it's great for the economy, but it's grown so much,” he said. “Musicians can't even live in Austin anymore. It's too expensive. It becomes less about the music and more about the scene. Embrace it but don't let it become a beast. Tulsa has such a great cool vibe to it, I love it, keep the heart of Tulsa.”

Ray Wylie Hubbard with Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights and Aaron Lee Tasjan
Thursday, May 12 | 8 p.m. | $20-$35
Cain's Ballroom | 423 N. Main St.
cainsballroom.com