Songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard follows his muse

Singer-songwriter and self-described “spiritual mongrel” Ray Wylie Hubbard seems to have found his Zen place. Hubbard lives in Wimberley, Texas, and counts among his neighbors fellow songwriters Kevin Welch and Slaid Cleaves. He's regarded as an elder statesman of sorts, admired across multiple generations of popular artists who affectionately refer to him as the “Wylie Lama.” His wife, Judy, is his manager, and she also runs his record label, allowing him to follow his muse instead of participating in an industry grind.

“As an old cat, it's a really great place to be,” the Oklahoma-born Hubbard said. “I'm not writing because I have a publishing deal or to try to get Tim McGraw or Kenny Chesney to record my songs. I feel very fortunate. ... I'm writing because that's kind of what I do.”

The 71-year-old Hubbard's career is well into its fourth decade. He got his start playing folk music in high school, and he penned (and was name-dropped on the popular recording of) the 1973 Jerry Jeff Walker hit “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother.” The success of that song, at once an anthem and a parody of itself, kick-started Hubbard's popularity, but the following years get hazy — a jumble of comparatively unsuccessful follow-up attempts and a spiral into addiction, as documented in his 2015 autobiography, “A Life … Well, Lived.”

If you ask Hubbard when he landed on music as a career, he jokingly demurs.

“I'm still trying to make that decision. There's been certain years where on the income tax form I've just been just above hobby status,” Hubbard said, laughing. “Somewhere in my 20s, I figured I really enjoyed it. In my 40s, I really got serious about my songwriting, made a conscious decision to become a real songwriter, take guitar lessons, study the craft of it.”

Hubbard calls 1994's “Loco Gringo's Lament” his “first real record.” “It was the first time I really felt like I could hand it to someone and go, ‘Here's my record,' without making excuses.”

The vaguely spiritual thread established on that album — the words ”prayer,” “angel” and “bless” all make appearances in the song titles — has carried through every subsequent release, notably 2017's “Tell the Devil I'm Gettin' There As Fast As I Can.” Hubbard says it's not necessarily a religious thing.

“I prefer spiritual awakening to religious conversion,” Hubbard said. “I try to live on certain spiritual principles, but I don't follow any one particular dogma; I take what works for me. But I enjoy reading about comparative religions and mythology, and it does affect my writing.”

Indeed, Hubbard's uncanny ability to deadpan light subject matter with a heavy groove (see: “Snake Farm,” in which Hubbard sings, “Snake farm / it just sounds nasty / snake farm / it pretty much is”) is matched only by his ability to take something heavy and sand its edges down with tongue-in-cheek lyricism, as on the title track to his latest record, in which his aging protagonist succumbs to the rock ‘n' roll lifestyle in comically specific detail: “Playing a Strat through a Vox AC30 / Gives a troublesome back and a ringing in ears.”

Sometimes listeners catch the wink and the nod. Others, as frequently seemed to be the case with “Redneck Mother,” they don't. Hubbard is oft-quoted as saying, “The problem with irony is not everyone gets it.” It's unclear whether this problem has improved over the years.

“It's kind of a kind of a wacky world going on right now, so satire's kind of not as prevalent as it as it used to be, I suppose,” Hubbard said. “There was ‘Gulliver's Travels' and ‘1984,' ‘Animal Farm,' and there's not a lot of that stuff going on anymore; there's a lot of sarcasm.”

To his credit, being misunderstood seems low on the list of Ray Wylie Hubbard's concerns at this point in his career. He is critically successful, writes when and what he pleases, answers only to his wife and is joined on the road by his son and guitarist, Lucas Hubbard.

“When Lucas was 15, we were playing some show, and Mickey Raphael, who's played harmonica with Willie Nelson for 40 years, said, ‘You know what'll give you longevity in your music career? Don't play while the singer is singing. They don't like that,' ” Hubbard recalled.

He has similarly succinct guidelines for his own songwriting: “It comes down to grit, groove, tone and taste.”

In addition to his summer tour, he recently shot a role in the forthcoming music video for his co-write with Eric Church, “Desperate Man.” Church is a longtime collaborator and fan of Hubbard's and even mentioned him by name on his 2015 single “Mr. Misunderstood.” He also contributed background vocals to Hubbard's last album.

Hubbard has equally high regard for Church, counting him among one of the younger country music “cats out there doing really good. I think he's a stand-up guy, and he cares more about the song than about having a hit.”

The same could be said of Hubbard himself. Moving forward, he says his plans aren't concrete but that a new batch of grit, groove, tone and taste is in the works ... when the spirit moves him.

“I'm always writing and not thinking about the next record,” Hubbard said. “Flannery O'Connor said to never second-guess inspiration. That great ‘Ah!' can happen anytime.”