Ray Wylie Hubbard is a Texas original. He’s old enough to collect retirement, but he’s still writing songs, recording, performing, producing, touring, and scoring movies, and he still has the same wily spirit that has been his trademark since he wrote “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mothers,” a hit for Jerry Jeff Walker in the early 1970s and an anthem for the Texas music scene. Since those early days, he’s released 17 albums of his own, including a brand new one, The Ruffian’s Misfortune, which Elmore Magazine calls “one of the tightest records he’s ever recorded” and American Songwriter calls “a lean, mean set that wraps up in just over a half hour but whose raw reverberations last long after.” The reviews describe Ray Wylie as “one of the most strikingly original musicians in the country” and praise his “crusty, ornery, and authentic growl” and his “taut, dynamic, and compelling” music. He’s a presence you won’t soon forget, and his songs have a gritty intensity that will stay with you for a good long while.

Bob Livingston is a cosmic cowboy who co-founded the Lost Gonzo band, played on dozens of albums with Ray Wylie, Jerry Jeff Walker, Butch Hancock, and Michael Martin Murphey, and released nine albums of his own, including Mahatma Gandhi & Sitting Bull and Gypsy Alibi. He grew up in Lubbock, moved to Austin in 1971, and started backing other musicians, playing on such classic albums as Cosmic Cowboy Souvenir and Viva Terlingua. The Lost Gonzo Band became headliners in their own right, releasing six albums between 1972 and 1998. Bob’s easy-going Texas charm has led him around the world as a Music Ambassador for the State Department, and he also plays all across Texas with a multi-cultural band from Texas and India called Cowboys & Indians. He’s boogied in Bangladesh and yodeled in Yemen. “When all else fails,” he says, “music prevails.”

Read the No Depression review of The Ruffian's Misfortune here.

Visit Ray Wylie Hubbard's website

visit Bob Livingston's website

Ray Wylie Hubbard Photo by Todd Wolfson