Wayne Hancock

People throw around the term “hardest working man in show business” so much that it hardly means anything. There’s no telling if Texas guitarist Wayne “The Train” Hancock is the hardest worker out there, but he sure does work. The guy hits the road hard, manages his own affairs and routinely passes the 3-hour mark at shows. The first thing you might notice when Hancock starts to yodel-lay-hee-hoo is that he sounds a hell of a lot like Hank Williams. But his authentic (and we mean authentic) brand of honky-tonk and Western swing — he calls it “juke-joint swing” — is by no means stuck in the past. Hancock may be channeling the lost, lonely ghosts of a country music giant, but his earnestness is as true as the east Texas dirt he was raised on, and his raw passion is sure to turn anyplace into a rowdy juke joint.