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Monday, June 8, 2015

Wayne Hancock 
"Ride" ( Bloodshot)



Much was made of Wayne's significance when first he broke into national consciousness with 1995's "Thunderstorms and Neon Signs;" "Wayne the Train," as he quickly was hailed, was a vital, prison farm-workshirted personification of bouyant juke joint swing. His battered and furiously downstroked acoustic, rough hewn, everyman drawl, and the mischevious, toothy, sideways grin he flashed as slap bass walked the line, electric lead-picking stung, and steel caromed off jump-bop rhythms earned broad renown. 

Great things, then, were expected of the starkly rustic raconteur in whose twangy voice seemed to lurk the limber-limbed ghosts of every time-lost honky tonk under the risen bad moon. 

Yesterday's promise is today's solid certainty. The Texas rockabilly scramble that has always figured in Wayne's music looms still, and is appropriately a-smolder. Rip-rollicking big band jollity breathes, too. When Wayne slips into swaybacked, mid-tempo country blues he evokes Hank Williams, Sr - a genuine touchstone for all who would tread this unadorned path. And he even relaxes still further now and again, delivering tuneful plaints of universal melacholia.

"Ride's" eminent bounties are maintained in lucid relief by the wise co-production of the star and his longtime collaborator Lloyd Maines, himself an iconic figure of rich repute. 

"Man, I'm like a stab wound in the country music of Nashville," the paradoxically rebellious traditionalist once laughed. "See that bloodstain slowly spreading? That's me!"  

Truly, Wayne Hancock is that rare Americana treasure that shines brilliantly when so many surrounding are dullish and unremarkable.

Recommended "Ride," "Cappuccino Boogie," "Deal Gone Down," "Best To Be Alone," "Get the Blues Low Down," "Lone Road Home"



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FORMER staff writer for Rockabilly and Pin Up America magazines. FREELANCE credits include Daily Caller, American Thinker, Free Republic, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Independent Political Report, USA Today, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press-Citizen, Waterloo Courier, Cedar Falls Times, Marshalltown Times Republican, Cincinnati.com, IndyStar, Arizona Republic, No Depression, Goldmine, Blue Suede News, Rock and Rap Confidential, Crackerjack, Blues News, Wrecking Pit, Punk Globe, Prairie Sun, Music and Sound Output, BAM, New Music, and 1980s NYC fanzines Shake, Rattle, and Roll, Rebel Rouser, and Off the Wall. AUTHOR: Shake, Rattle and Rocket!, Ghost Saucers in the Sky!, Stratosphere Boogieman!, Flesh Made Music, That a Man Can Again Stand Up: American spirit vs, sedition during the incipient Trump Revolution, and Ideas Afoot: Political observations, social commentary, and media analyses. WORKED as 2004 Iowa coordinator for Ralph Nader independent presidential campaign; co-founded Iowa Green Party, also served as statewide media coordinator; press coordinator, 2002 Jay Robinson (Green) IA gubernatorial effort. Wrote extensively re Trump campaign..