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(Issue Date: May 2nd, 1996) Wayne Hancock's honky-tonk spirit By Michael McCall
Wayne Hancock expects to enjoy his return visit to Nashville much
more than the time he spent here in the late 1980s. Then, just out of the
U.S. Marine Corps, the Texas resident moved to Nashville "believing in a
fantasy," he says. "I'd never been [to Nashville], and I had a different
picture of what it really was. I was expecting it to be a big, happy
jamfest, with everyone focused on the music. And it's not that."
At the time, Hancock was a hard-drinking Hank Williams acolyte who
didn't care for most of the country music created during the 20-odd years
of his life. Instead, he emulated pre-rock-era honky-tonk, a raw, keening
style of country music free of modern polish. The Nashville business
insiders he met told him he was too old-fashioned and too derivative, and
that he sang through his nose with too strong of a twang. "I met all the
wrong people," he says, including "a Music Row shark who immediately told
me my stuff was no good. I was basically run out of town, and I went away
with an attitude."
This time will be different. When Hancock makes his Nashville debut
this Saturday at the Sutler, he comes as one of the leaders of a national
hillbilly music movement that takes classic country of the '40s and '50s
and gives it a hard-edged, driving energy and a modern wit and sensibility.
Hancock's album, Thunderstorms and Neon Signs, earned a spot on many
year-end Top 10 lists for its engaging, upbeat update of the roadhouse
honky-tonk of Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Snow and Webb Pierce. Like
Nashville's BR5-49, L.A.'s Big Sandy & the Fly-Rite Boys or Texas' Don
Walser and the Pure Texas Band, Hancock is unapologetically devoted to
pre-Nashville Sound country.
"Our music sounds like country music did in the '40s, before everything
had to be so perfect, and we give it a real hard slap-bass sound that makes
it jump like a rockabilly band," Hancock says. "We don't dress like we're
from another time; we don't want to get tagged as retro. Lyrically, we're
dealing with today's problems. What we're trying to do is tie in then and
now and the future. Everyone is so separated these days. Doing music like
this seems to bring people together."
Nonetheless, Hancock has faced criticism for being anachronistic in
sound and in subject matter--his songs are packed with references to
locomotives, juke joints, soda pop, hep cats, poor boys, hot mamas and
good-time gals. A scathing L.A. Weekly review condemned Hancock for
slavishly mimicking a classic sound and wielding it in clich-ridden verse
bereft of the yearning soulfulness and emotional pain of the original style
he emulates.
Hancock sees it differently. "People who say juke joints and riding the
rails don't exist haven't been in the places I've been," he says. "Any
neighborhood pub with a jukebox can be a juke joint, or any rundown place
where a band sets up and plays for dancers. And I guarantee you there are
still men out there riding the rails, piggybacking on trains to get from
one place to another. It's dangerous, but they do it. It's the cheapest way
of transportation."
Past that, songs like "Double A Daddy" and "Big City Good Time Gal"
tackle modern subjects with earthy gusto. In the former, certainly one of
the few honky-tonk songs from the point of view of a member of Alcoholics
Anonymous, Hancock cheekily encourages his lover to fully indulge herself
on their night out while he stays sober. "That's it baby, go ahead and tie
one on," he sings. "Yeah, tilt it back momma 'til the last drops are gone.
When your daddy's at the wheel ain't nothing ever gonna go wrong." "Big
City Good Time Gal" tells of a country boy hooking up with an urbanite who
lives in a two-room flat in the 14th floor of a high-rise. "This scene
ain't nothing like the rural route," he sings of city life. "You ain't got
to travel to go stepping out."
As it turns out, Hancock gave up drinking a few years back. Some people
can handle it, he says. Some, like himself, can't. He wrote "Good Time Gal"
in Philadelphia while playing a role in Chippy, a musical production
put on by Texas tunesmiths Joe Ely and Terry Allen. Another song written
during the play's Philly run is "Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own," a swing
tune complete with a joyfully dancing clarinet. In it, he tells of watching
his buddies burn the town each night while he stayed in. "You can have your
cheap motels and running around 'til late," he sings, "that kind of loving
is second rate." In "Why Don't You Leave Me Alone," he aggressively tells
his woman that while he may be a gentleman, he's no "sensitive sissy," and
he's not going to let her cavalierly manipulate his emotions.
There's also a side of Hancock that doesn't bother with defensiveness.
He does what he wants to do, it's as plain as that. To him, there's a
difference between classic, home-baked apple pie and a fried fruit pocket
picked up at a drive-through window. There's a difference between a '56
Chevy and a '96 Nova. To him, it's the same difference between the music he
loves and the country currently dominating the commercial airwaves.
His music evokes a classic strain of Americana, one that captures the
lustiness of a hard-working couple going juke joint jumping on a weekend
night, the romance of travel, the weariness of long days on the road, and
the joy of seeing a neon sign blinking "vacancy." Similarly, there's an
old-style feistiness in his lyrics rarely found today. He doesn't worry
about a man charming away his woman, as most modern country singers might.
Instead, he'll get in the guy's face, as he does in one of the best cuts on
Thunderstorms and Neon Signs: "She's my baby, and I'll tell you this
much, you can look at my candy, but you better not touch."
Hancock, who stopped listening to modern music when he entered the
Marines, comes by his tastes honestly. When he was born, his father was 44
years old and listened almost exclusively to old country and big band
swing. "Poor Boy Blues," the oldest original song on Thunderstorms,
was written when Hancock was 11 or 12. The song's chorus is obviously
derived from Hank Williams' version of "Lovesick Blues."
In a phone interview, Hancock spoke with the zeal of an obsessed man.
He talked of the difficulty of finding a stand-up acoustic bass player with
the stamina to play all night. Hancock hopes someday to alternate two
members of the band on bass, so that the rhythm stays vigorous without
tiring the instrumentalist. That's an important clue to Hancock's sound:
His band is an all-string affair, without support from a drummer. Still,
there's plenty of dynamic movement and rhythm, thanks to the bass and two
fiercely strummed acoustic guitars. They're augmented by the sweet,
stinging tones of a steel guitar and a vintage electric guitar.
It's a sound Hancock has honed since returning to Texas. For a while,
Nashville left such a bad taste in his mouth that he gave up music and
submerged himself in drink. The Marines turned down his request to return
to the corps. He worked as an auto mechanic, a city garbage collector, and
a dishwasher. When a shooting occurred next door in the tenement where he
resided, he accepted a ride to Austin, planning only a short visit. On his
first night in town, he took a $10 job opening for veteran Texas country
singer Rusty Weir. He proved good enough to gain an invitation to perform
nightly.
That's when Hancock's turnaround began. Newly sober, he altered his
traditional take on hillbilly music by adding a slap bass to give the music
an energy it had previously lacked. Before long, such Austin luminaries as
Joe Ely, Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel, blues guitarist Sue Foley and
artist manager and record producer T.J. McFarland offered support.
Not everything went well, however. Hancock signed a contract with
Benson and McFarland. On tour as the opening act for Asleep at the Wheel
not long afterward, Hancock found himself receiving $50 a night with no
extra expenses provided; he was forced to sleep on the band's bus nightly
because he couldn't afford a room. During this time, he met young blues
guitarist Sue Foley, who had more business savvy. She helped free him from
the contract with one letter from a lawyer.
Meanwhile, Hancock recorded demos for Elektra and drew interest from
Warner Bros. in Nashville. Both deals fell through, because of Hancock's
refusal to change his sound. Joe Ely, whom Hancock had never heard of when
the two met one night after a show, invited Hancock to take part in the
Chippy production. He accepted a role originally written for Jimmie
Dale Gilmore.
Then came Thunderstorms and Neon Signs, released on DejaDisc, an
independent label in Texas. Nowadays, Hancock deals more with wild
acceptance than with dismissive rejection. "It seems to be working," he
says. "I think a lot of it has to do with the sound and the upbeat songs.
Me being an ex-alcoholic, I used to get very depressed. To get out of that
depression I'd write upbeat songs. Bob Wills told his band members to never
let him hear them singing a sad song. Even if the subject is sad, sing it
with a smile on your face. I love that. I may have just lost everything,
but I've got a smile. That's the kind of spirit I want my songs to have."
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