A few weeks ago at the Ernest Tubb Midnite Jamboree to celebrate Ernest Tubb’s birthday I was browsing around the store and ran into a man whose music I been admiring for a while now but never met in person, Rob McNurlin. I got to finally talk to the man who has in his band one of my favorite steel guitarist legends left with us, Kayton Roberts.
Now Kayton Roberts was an original member of Hank Snow’s Rainbow Ranch Boys and he played for Hank Snow for 30 years. He has given Country Music so much, he played the title track of Marty Stuart’s “Ghost Train” and also mentored Andy Gibson who played steel guitar for Hank 3 and played on 4 of his albums. Andy toured with the Damn Band for many years before leaving to produce. Kayton also played for Hank 3 on his first 2 curb records albums “Risin Outlaw” and “Lovesick Broke And Drifti’n”. The later of the two being my personal favorite album of Hank’s. Rob also produced Kayton’s album “Valley Of The Roses” which featured Marty Stuart And His Superlatives,Chris Scruggs and Ranger Doug Green for Riders In The Sky.
He gave me his brand new album he self produced on Buffalo Skinner records called “Blue Nashville Guitar”. All 10 songs on this album were wrote by Rob himself and this album features a lot of Kenny Vaughn’s guitar work which I’m a BIG fan of. The second song “Blue Guitar” is a damn fine song I think it’s one of the best on the whole album, but honestly my personal favorite one was “Satan’s Bouquet”. It’s a great well written song about repent and regret I would swear Hank Williams Sr wrote it if I didn’t know it. This album is his 7th studio album and it will stay in my constant rotation of CD’s in my truck.
“Take It On The Road” is always a good choice for a good Country song as well. I’d highly suggest this album on my top list of 2015 so far. He just got done with a show in Prestonburg WV and on the 14th he will be in Moorehead Kentucky. So go check out his website and see if he will be in your area next and also if he is around the Nashville area I’ll have him up on my weekly updated local venue article for sure.