Something New
Russell Cruse listens to a controversial new album from Roger Hubbard
Legendary on the music circuit, Roger Hubbard has dazzled audiences for decades with the inimitable sound of his home-made electric resonator, ‘The Hub’, and his venerable old National Steel guitar. Under theSun, his latest self-produced album, on which he plays almost all the instruments, offers something different. Hubbard says: “Over the last couple of years I’ve come to conclusions that are not shared by most people”.
Lovers of Hubbard’s undoubted musicianship and song-writing will discover plenty to enjoy. He offers fine Country Blues grooves, inspired riffs and solos, alongside faultless fingerstyle, thumb-picked Broonzy-style playing.
The title track is unmistakeably Hubbard – swamp-drenched, beautifully played on The Hub, with typically languid, yet precise phrasing. On The Tide has Turned,he’sjoined by daughter Sadie on fiddle for an Irish-tinged country ballad. Caught Up in the Gameis similar but with a strong Southern-Mex flavour. However, the polemical nature of this album begins to bite and some listeners may recoil at sentimentalised tales of women who fell foul of the Covid-19 restrictions. Wisely, Hubbard holds his beliefs in check and most later tracks are more generalised complaints about an oppressive Establishment and the trials of the jobbing musician. Times are Getting Toughis an old-fashioned Depression-era, Country Blues lament about poverty.
Mandolin and slide back To the Ends of the Earth, an anti-government protest song, with muted references to Covid and lockdown – though a declaration that “fact-checkers are toeing the line” jars somewhat. A companion piece, Do not Fear,relates to his daughter’s opposition to vaccine passports in Ireland. I’ma Man of My Own Opinion, “ a jaunty, reflective song” features a nice change of pace, its old-fashioned feel enhanced by great picking on his pre-war Martin acoustic. Hoodwinked and Cheated, a song of regret, with mournful arpeggiated ‘cowboy chords’ over a tasteful slide accompaniment, describes the agony of musicians seeing their livelihoods evaporate during lockdown. Again, Hubbard makes it a song beyond Covid. Deal with the Devil comes straight from the Delta. A Robert Johnson-inspired insistent slide figure hammers away throughout this unpretentious pared-down song, beginning: “I can’t work, they won’t let me sing…”
Let Everybody Knowis more problematic. Whilst featuring a quite beautiful, laid-back riff, held together by an understated bass groove and muted tabla of which JJ Cale would have been proud, the lyrics are hyperbolic. “They’re coming for the children and they intend to do some harm”, claiming that parents were being advised to inject them with an experimental drug. Freedom Convoyis a standard Country ballad about the Canadian Covid 19 trucker protests. It portrays the drivers as heroes and would find playtime on any Alabama radio station. Drawing the album to a finale is homesick ballad, Good Things. Sparse, simple, piano-backed, it has a great tune and is gloriously low-fi, lyrically strong and the most relatable song on an album which, as Hubbard predicts, will divide his fans.
After the opprobrium received by Eric Clapton and Van Morrison, perhaps Hubbard is courageous in standing up for his beliefs and there is much to enjoy in this album, though he’s hardly challenging an orthodoxy of power and repression – think Victor Jara – murdered onstage by Pinochet’s goons, or Guthrie and Seeger suffering intimidation and jail, or even Dylan and Baez practically writing the soundtrack to the Peace Movement. How you view Under the Sundepends where you stand on masks and jabs, and how ready you are to enjoy the tunes without worrying about the words.
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