Wayne “The Train” Hancock

With his sturdy frame and next-door-neighbor smile, Wayne “The Train” Hancock doesn’t exactly look like the next step in the Bob Wills musical line, even with his classic vintage shirts. But he’s been lauded by (and played with) the surviving Texas Playboys, and his latest, Swing Time, recorded live at the Continental Club in Austin, Texas, proves Hancock knows the Western swing tradition as well as if he’d been there at its birth. His Wills-like vocal interjections — yeah, all right, whooey-whooey-whoo — sound sincere, escaping into the music as naturally as, say, compadre Bob “Texaco” Stafford’s trombone. That’s not to say Hancock has forsaken fans of his rockabilly and honky-tonk; those in need of his plaintive “Thunderstorms and Neon Signs” will get their fix. As much as he respects tradition, Hancock isn’t afraid to get jazz, wild pedal-steel solos or horns mixed up in his country.