Wiki
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Release Date
1 January 1999
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Length
10 tracks
Ray Wylie Hubbard:
Crusades of the Restless Knights, (Philo 1218) Released 01/01/1999
"With his faded jeans and scruffy beard, Texas songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard is like Dante Alighieri disguised as Willie Nelson. Crusades of the Restless Knights is an album full of spiritual references – not just to the devil but also to ghosts, angels, baptisms, crosses, dead poets, femme fatales and untrustworthy Bible salesmen. And over the course of the ten songs, Ray pulls off something that is very rarely done – he sings of spiritual matters without becoming cynical, reactionary, sentimental or otherwise humorless. It's the best album he's ever made" –Geoffrey Himes, from his liner notes "The possessor of a voice and a poetic eye both seasoned by time and hard knocks, coupled with solid folk country and rock instincts, Hubbard seems at the height of his creative powers. At long last, he stands poised to take his place alongside such between-the-cracks Lone Star artists as Steve Earle and Joe Ely."
John T. Davis
Austin, Texas
The Credits
Produced by Ray Wylie Hubbard & Lloyd Maines
Ray Wylie Hubbard Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Slide Guitar,
Stephen Bruton Mandolin, Electric Guitar, Guitar (Baritone)
Troy Campbell Background Vocals
Patty Griffin Background Vocals, Harmony Vocals
Lloyd Maines Acoustic Guitar, Dobro, Pedal Steel Guitar, Steel Guitar, Background Vocals
Paul Pearcy Percussion, Drums, Tambourine, Cardboard Box
Glenn Fukunaga Bass, Electric Bass, Bass Guitar, Upright Bass
Terry Ware Electric Guitar
Terri Hendrix Acoustic Guitar, Vocals, Background Vocals
Eamon McLoughlin
Fiddle, Violin
Lisa Mednick
Accordion, Background Vocals
Recorded at Cedar Creek Studios, Austin, Texas.
The Songs
1 Crows 04:52
2 There Are Some Days 05:08
3 The Lovers in Your Dreams 04:31
4 Conversation with the Devil 05:06
5 Red Dress 03:39
6 The River Bed 03:55
7 This River Runs Red 05:17
8 After the Harvest 04:03
9 Airplane Fell Down in Dixie 03:47
10 The Messenger 04:00
#1 Choice in Top 10 CD's of 1999 Listener Picks - KPFT 90.1FM Radio - Houston, TX
1999 Critics Choice Top CD's" (Country) - The Denver Post
1999 Song of the Year - Conversations With The Devil - Austin Amp Awards (Austin Music Pundits)
Top 100 Editors' Picks List for 1999 - Amazon.com
Top 10 List Best Country CDs 1999 - Amazon.com - Country Editor Marc Greilsamer
Top 10 List Best Folk CD's 1999 - Amazon.com - Folk Editor Steve Stolder
REVIEWS
Ray Wylie Hubbard's Crusades of the Restless Knights (Philo) cements his position as the current king of Texas folk poets.
Dave Marsh – PLAYBOY
"…a gem of an album that looks through a glass darkly at all matters spiritual….Feel the heat."
Entertainment Weekly
"…arguably among his finest to date…still down to earth in true Ray Wylie fashion…"
Dirty Linen
Ray Wylie Hubbard,
“Crusades of the Restless Knights”
(Philo): Hubbard reaches a new musical high. Sublime lyrics, driving instrumentals and emotional vocals make this one of the best releases of the decade. Much of the writing takes your breath away, regardless of the subject Hubbard is addressing. In “There Are Some Days,” Hubbard writes beautifully about regrets. Love is the subject of “the Lovers in Your Dream.” “The
Messenger” offers Hubbard’s take On the book “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke. And life’s absurdity is humorously Shown in “Conversation With the Devil,” which relates a dream Hubbard had about being in hell. Hubbard sings each song with confidence, hitting the right tone emotionally and musically.
The Denver Post- Top CDs of ’99
Sunday, January 2, 2000
A Portrait of Sin & Redemption
Ray Wylie Hubbard – Crusades Of The Restless Knights (Philo/Rounder)
There's no room for grizzled old poets in Nashville, just pretty boys in tight jeans and cowboy hats, vacant stares not at all concealing blank slates. Ray Wylie Hubbard, on the other hand, looks like an old book; his face lined with experience, his songs vivid pages illustrated with great craftsmanship, tales sharing the beauty of life in all of its ups and downs. Crusades Of The Restless Knights is the kind of album that only a survivor could make, somebody with a few miles under their belt, more than a few scars on both their bodies and their souls and the musical vocabulary to share it with the listener.
A long-time fixture on a Texas music scene that includes fellow talents like Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker and the late Townes Van Zandt, Ray Wylie Hubbard is best known, perhaps, for his wild reckless ways and unshakeable status as one of the founders of the seventies cosmic cowboy scene. In his heart, however, Hubbard is a folk singer, a teller of tales and at its root, Crusades Of The Restless Knights is a spiritual journey both lyrically and musically. In songs peopled with angels and demons, saints and criminals, star-crossed lovers and broken heroes, Hubbard has created a not-so-gentile Faulkner South, weaving wonderful stories from the fabric of his experience and insightful observations.
Many of the tales on Crusades Of The Restless Knights, songs like “This River Runs Red” concern themselves with the choices people make in this life, offering a world where you're either saved or a sinner and there's a fine line between the two. “There Are Some Ways” is as much about the pain of growing older as it is about the regrets of no longer being young. Hubbard is not an altogether somber wordsmith, however, as proven by the side-splitting, knee-slapping religious commentary of “Conversation With The Devil.” A classic talking blues with acoustic accompaniment that was inspired by an actual dream, the song cleverly tars abusive parents, right-wing Christians and Nashville record execs with the brush of damnation. The song revisits the fiddle contest in Charlie Daniels' classic “Devil Went Down To Georgia” before closing with the inspired lines “some get spiritual cause they see the light/and some cause they feel the heat.”
Aside from its underlying themes of hope and redemption, Crusades Of The Restless Knights also honors those who have already gone to their judgement. “Airplane Fell Down In Dixie” pays homage to the fallen members of Southern rock legends Lynyrd Skynyrd while “The Messenger,” from an earlier Hubbard album, is amended here as a tribute to fellow Texan Townes Van Zandt, with beautiful backing vocals from Patty Griffin. Echoing, perhaps, Hubbard's own artistic redemption, “The Messenger” closes the album with the ultimate statement of hope: “I just want to see what's next.”
Filled with vivid imagery, masterfully painted characters and intelligent, literary lyrics, Crusades Of The Restless Knights is everything a country album should be, Hubbard the kind of artist that Nashville labels should be signing. Too raw, too honest and too talented for “Music Row,” Hubbard remains a country outsider creating art that rises above commerce, music that looks to the future while paying heavy dues to the ghosts of the past. One of the year's best efforts and a timeless collection of songs, I'd heartily recommend Crusades Of The Restless Knights to any music lover who values craft and skill above style and trends.
Rev. Keith A. Gordon 1999
www.cdnow.com
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