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A debut album of absorbing originals from Ray Wylie Hubbard's longtime bass player that was also produced by the progressive-country Texas legend at Dripping springs' fabled Zone Recording Studio.  Throughout, Kennard exhibits a real flair for old-timey, often strangely compelling melodies and memory-driven lyrics, refreshingly free of theatrics or false sincerity, that offer personality-rich snapshots and vivid word sketches of the world of the rust and dust-filled Lone Star hill country he calls home.

Hubbard can't resist joining in on a few tracks (two of which also feature the disarmingly elastic back-up singing of Jessica Walker).  His crisp mandolin work adds to the expansive mood of the opening "My Third Dream" and his lonely harmonica accents his buddy's drawling, Dylan-like vocal on the sensuous "Pouring' Rain".  And while his guitar playing gets lost in the mix on a contemplative, brightly arranged "Hummingbird" it's Hubbard's lingering Dobro slide phrasing on the closing, bittersweet "Mother" that lends the elegy a fitting musical glow.

Kennard also engagingly recalls a folk-era Dylan on the off-handed, foot-tapping "Somewhere in France" and a quiet, leaving blues "Totterdown", the project's sole solo track.  Also noted is the cautionary, hard-scrabble saga of "Johnny Dallas" (that Steve Earle was born to sing), the brooding "Preacher" and "Country Town", a dizzyingly detailed look at one of those small burgs, well off the highway, that no one ever notices.

Seriously articulate, captivatingly confidential music that grabs hold hard.

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Guthrie Kennard's debut CD is filled with moody, brooding, thoughtful songs with a bluesy, often acoustic feel delivered in a soft, raspy voice somewhere between Bob Dylan's and producer Ray Wylie Hubbard's. In a career that's stretched to nearly 40 years, Kennard has played bass with Hubbard, Smokin' Joe Kubek, Doyle Bramhall Sr., Rocky Hill, Buddy Miles, Curly "Barefoot" Miller, Jim Suhler, Marc Benno, and Robert Ealey. Kennard helped found The Hippie Dogs, all of whom Buddy magazine has named "Texas Tornados."

His songs on Ranch Road 12 - he wrote 10 and co-wrote the other three - are very human songs, with a bit of the cosmic in them: shaking hands with space and time, people who star into mirrors searching for their souls, trains that run out of track, and angels dying on the backs of crosses.

On the opening song, "My Third Dream," Kennard and supporting singer Jessica Walker negotiate sleepless nights. From there, in "Country Town," he evokes a not-so-long-ago town along Highway 80 in East Texas, from the holy rollers to the midnight hour to the rooster's crow. "Preacher" is a sort of lament and prayer for things that are wrong in the world, and "Ain't Enough," a co-write with Brett Reid, covers some of that same territory, complaining that there "ain't enough radio playin' rock and roll, ain't enough rosin on that fiddler's bow," and moving down the list of twenty-first century woes. The CD never gets in too much of a hurry. Although there are a couple of electric guitar solos, the feel remains acoustic. Guthrie does the vocals and plays bass and guitar. Hubbard adds mandolin, guitar, harmonica, and Dobro. Among the other musicians, Reid and Seth James add guitars, and Pat Manske and Peter Kaplan handle percussion.

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Guthrie Kennard is one bad ass song writer and this is no mediocre compliment. This man can write a song that is as true as an angel on the witness stand. His songs are intense and none on this album are run of the mill. His gravely vocal performances deliver the songs with such realness that it is hard not to hang on every word.  This album is forceful and has a realness very few recordings ever achieve.

A winning project. close