From Manhattan Local Music Examiner on www.examiner.com

Legendary Texas country singer-songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard was typically engaging at Joe's Pub in New York last night.

Flanked by 17 year-old son Lucas on expert blues guitar and drummer Rick Richards, Hubbard, who also played guitar, did songs from his current Americana Music Awards Album of the Year nominee A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) including its Americana Song of the Year nominee "Drunken Poets Dream."

Of course he delivered Hubbard classics like "Up Against The Wall, Redneck Mother," too--all this plus the kind of real-life, unromanticized wisdom you don't ordinarily get in concert.

Hubbard, who is himself an Americana Artist of the Year nominee, recounted a gig a while back at San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. He was packing up after his show when a devoted fan came over to him and said how inspiring his music had been to him.

"Don't take this the wrong way but you're in your sixties and still writing and playing your songs," the curious fan observed. "How do you maintain that commitment?"

"It's really very simple," Hubbard responded. "Don't learn how to do anything else! You know how your parents told you to go to college and learn to do something? Well, don't do that. That's how you have this commitment."

Introducing his son, Hubbard further related that he and his wife had raised him proper: They wouldn't let Lucas listen to any music that came out after 1970. Indeed, they didn't let him listen to anyone white until he was 10.

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