When Wayne “The Train” Hancock went into the studio to record his 2009 album, “Viper of Melody,” he
inadvertently took the country music recording industry back more than 80 years to its roots.
What was gone were the multiple takes, overdubs, session players and studio magic that is prevalent on
nearly every commercially produced album, often blurring the lines between “true” performance, recording
and computer manipulation. What remained was a man with his guitar, a pocket full of songs about
heartbreak and honky tonks, backed by his regular road band that simply had to plug in and play
note-for-note songs they knew inside and out.
Hancock is something of an anomaly in modern country music. For more then 20 years he has drawn critical
and commercial praise for his honky-tonk mixture of country, blues, swing and rockabilly, appropriately
dubbed “juke-joint swing,” and classic country voice akin to the late, great Hank Williams. With eyes
closed he certainly sounds like he stepped out of a bar in the 1950s with a whisky bottle in one and
heart-break in the other.
But Hancock is not a musician hell-bent on unearthing a classic country sound, or capitalizing on a niche
in the industry. He is simply a man with songs to sing, looking for an audience to play for, regardless
of location or venue.
“I have played in places that were so small they had to flip over a pool table to make room for the crowd
to stand,” Hancock, who is based out of Austin, TX, said. “This myth of wanting to be the big star, I
have no desire to be like that. To be so well known that you can’t leave your own house.”
“I think it is better to be out here on the outskirts, remain anonymous for the most part and pitch to
the crowd that maybe can’t afford us,” he added. “I like playing to blue collar workers, working class
people.”
In times of economic turmoil, Hancock’s music is a sound track for those folks who simply want to escape
the onslaught of bad news… blue collar, white collar or in between. “I can make the bad times
swing…” a line from the title track to “Viper of Melody” says it all about what “The Train” stands
for.