Hailing from the Pacific Northwest of the US (Seattle, to be precise), Bob Wayne hit the road as a youngster selling t-shirts for Zeke, and having tasted of life on tour he next became guitar tech for Hank III. Touring with that band he became more and more infatuated with Country Music, and when one day the band arrived in Nashville...which still passes for the World's Capitol of Country Music, he decided to take some roots there.
Well, not quite completely, as he soon enough gathered a team of revolving musicians (which he's come to name Outlaw Carnies) around himself (something which continued into current days), and hit the road again with his own band. But at least he had a place to fall back to whenever his touring musicians felt the itch to go back home for a while to spend time with family and relatives. During those rare off moments, Bob recorded a couple of album's worth of songs, of which he eventually put some on a couple of albums which he would sell from the back of his car while on the road. As far as I can gather, there's been Blood To Dust and 13 Truckin' Songs, both self-released in Dec. 2008, and Jan. 2009's Driven By Demons. In between, some live recordings were made as well, and self-released as Bob Wayne Live and Bob Wayne Live 2 (I have no idea when exactly those were released, though!). Not limiting his touring frenzy to his own corner of the world, Bob also took his band of musicians across the Atlantic Ocean to acquaint us Europeans with his music...and in doin' so attracted the attention of German label People Like You, who have since recorded the two previous official albums Outlaw Carnie (Jan. 2011) and Till The Wheels Fall Off (May 2012).
Talking music, I have to say that Bob goes for a wide array of sub-genres within Country, goin' from classic soft ballad duets (3 of the 12 regular songs on this album, namely “20 Miles To Juarez”, “The River” and “Showdown”, have vocal contributions from a truly great female singer, which is otherwise not cited – another guest vocal role in the song “Dope Train”, this time male, also comes from a source unknown to yours truly) to more complex Blue Grass stuff and passing eventually also onto Country Rock. But what makes his songs particularly nice, is the story-telling lyrical side of it, ranging from stuff which might (with emphasis on might) have happened to Bob himself if he'd taken a different side in life, to stuff which clearly come from fantasy, and some of the supernatural. I love the cynical side of “Violent Side Of Me”, in which he confronts all too critical critics, but in all fairness I like the other stories even more! Very occasionally (check the album closing “Revelation”, for instance), Bob brings a slightly darker tone to his voice, which makes him come off as a perfect Johnny Cash copy, but it's done as a tribute to his idol and therefore absolutely acceptable, right? As a bonus, the hidden track, which I gather is entitled “All Cops Are Bastards” sounds very much like a cover. I mean, I believe very firmly I've heard it played by some Punk band in the past...could be they actually covered it too, you know!?
As far as I know there' no music off the new album posted on the Internet yet, but I may very well be wrong in that assessment, as with the network PC I use for my research I was unable to access the music posted at SoundCloud (find link at (http://)bobwayne.org), nor the “Look & Listen” section at (www.) facebook.com/BobWayneOfficial, or the artist's page at (www.) myspace.combobwayne...but there's some videos posted in the “Media” section at the label's site (www.) peoplelikeyourecords.com. By all means check out the cited sites for current material, or check the album's page on one of your trusted online sales sites (Amazon is a certainty), where you can normally listen to 30-second samples of all songs!
Great stuff this, but it is said over and over again that to witness Bob Wayne and his Outlaw Carnies in live conditions is even a bigger feast...and as Bob is currently touring his band throughout this continent of ours, us Europeans with an itch for good Country Music actually have a chance to see the band in action! Now as the tour started in early June, the guys already passed through Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. July will see the band do some more Swedish and Danish gigs, jump over to the UK and Ireland, do some more extensive gigging in Germany, do a one-off gog in Holland, and take on France before goin' back home again after a two-day appearance at the Binic Folks Blues Festival there in early August. 52 shows in exactly two months...quite a feat! Somewhere in between, by the way, the band will play at Belgium's Sjock Festival in Gierle on July 13. I have to work on that day, so I cannot be there, but I wish all of you attending a carnie good ole day...and with Bob and his gang playing the day can hardly go wrong!