Wayne Hancock Swing Time

At a time when many self-proclaimed musicologists and genre snobs want to bottle America’s rich musical legacy, label it, and put it on a museum shelf so it can be safely experienced, Wayne and his band of accomplices will have none of it--they aim to air it out every night and let it run...

Swing Time is Wayne "The Train" Hancock's second full-length album for Bloodshot, and it was recorded live over a few nights where he is most at home: the stage of Austin’s fabled roadhouse extraordinaire, The Continental Club. Produced by Lloyd Maines (Wilco, Richard Buckner, Joe Ely), this album dusts off some classics from albums that have been long out of print, like "Thunderstorms and Neon Signs" and "Johnny Law," and dresses them up in some new finery, showcases some brand new tunes, and rolls out some covers done in a style that has scuffed up dance floors from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon.

In the glare of the stage lights, Wayne and his tick tight band kick it out and rescue country’s heritage from the clutches of the Nash-vile leviathan. We think you’ll agree, the goods on Swing Time are more infectious than poison ivy, and twice as hard to shake once you’ve been exposed to it.

"A live album is not usually a great place to discover an artist you've ignored for too long... but this is a great goddam live album, and I feel like a dope for not having this guy's records in my collection. He impues his material with the kind of I-don't-give-a-fuck edge that pushes each and every one of these 'old-fashioned' songs right up into your face." —Scram

"Many artists embrace a musical style, but Wayne seems to have internalized his. His command of the western lexicon makes for material strong enough to be alongside classics of the genre, rather than just echo them." —Cleveland Scene

"I'm about to bust--Wayne's album is just brilliant... can't blurt out anything appropriate other than sheeeit--can it get any better than this?" —KGLT Bozeman, MT

"Here he sounds simultaneously more relaxed, limber and energized. His band both swings and rocks with irresistable joie de vivre... and has a palpable 'late-nite' ambience, distilling that feeling of wandering into a club and catching the band on a particularly good night." —East Bay Express

"Hancock is still very much a singer in the old yodeling honky-tonk blues style, but with his band given the room to stretch and swing, the songs really kick up their heels." —Austin American-Statesman