Release Date May 2012: blues, roots, canadiana, folk
Robert Burton Hubele
Highway of Dreams
‘This guy could sing the phone book and make it sound delicious.’
Independent Songwriter Magazine
'Robert Burton Hubele is a kool kat whose sound can best be described as a Starbucks Chai Tea Latte with a side of coffee cake; it’s a great way to cure your hunger and thirst for something sweet and refreshing.'
I Am Entertainment Magazine (Top 10 Webzine)
‘Hubele's unique songwriting flair, style, and quality musicianship is
Well-worth investigating.’
The Record
Musician, storyteller, and blue collar icon of Canadian life. Robert Burton Hubele has a catalogue of experiences as varied as the stylings of his Bluesy Jazzy songs. The same can be said for his experience of love. Always a songwriter first, Hubele has created his ninth cd release,Highway of Dreams, which is a musician’s kind of Red Shoe Diaries.
Highway of Dreams is a collection of dynamic travelling romances both written and guided by the Laws of Attraction which, like Hubele's songwriting, can take people everywhere they never imagined. Interwoven throughout the passages in these songs, there's a continued meeting and parting of movements of the heart and the movement of life.
Highway of Dreams works its magic and, from the first note, wins the ears of even the most guarded of listeners. As one in a series of themed albums of Robert’s deep-rooted Roots and Blues, what you get is an incredible display of imagination from a truly avant-garde songwriting talent.
Robert Burton Hubele will be touring extensively in 2012 with his classic sophistication, blue collar tunings, songs, stories and of course that ‘’down-home’ stage performance wit. Make sure to catch the opportunity to see Hubele in the Highway of Dreams Tour, as before you awake it may already be through. ###
Robert and his wife Susan make their home in Vancouver’s beautiful West End on English Bay, near Stanley Park
Robert’s music can be previewed and purchased on his web site www.roberthubele.com and http://cdbaby.com/cd/rbhubele2
Robert is the oldest of eight children, raised in the prairies of southern Alberta, Canada. At 14, he laboured at a steel mill and then became a heavy equipment operator. At 21, he wrote his first song.
Robert’s world view is that love and harmony are all. Writing songs and giving concerts are Robert’s focus in life - making a difference in the world through his songwriting and concerts, causing people to see their lives in a new, more harmonious light. And it is not always the big things in life that are the most important. Robert writes about the little things that make a difference.
Robert is entirely self-taught. His love for the blues started with listening to popular music on the radio as a teen. What caught his ear was Eric Burden’s ‘House of the Rising Sun’. He had no idea that it was the blues, but he just had to learn to play that song. His friend Butch, a Redcap and co-worker at the Canadian Pacific Railroad, offered to loan him his electric guitar and amplifier and teach him how to play it.
Robert became fascinated with the earthy beat and emotional impact of the blues. He began listening to and playing along with B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, and Freddie and Albert King.
Robert’s introduction to jazz was through Chuck Tracy, a hard-core lounge musician and really funny guy who was his roomate for a while. In listening to him rehearse and perform, Robert got turned onto the music of Tom Waits, Mose Allison and Fats Waller. He also listened to Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Benny Goodman and - especially - Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan.
There is also a touch of country in Robert’s music from growing up on the prairies on the fringe of Calgary, where music by Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Marty Robbins was the background of his life.
Robert’s interest in slide dobro began when he first heard Bonnie Raitt in the early 70s. She had learned to play slide from Mississippi Fred McDowell and Robert just had to learn how to make that ‘slidey’ sound himself. He figured out how to tune his guitar to slide tuning, and made a lot of racket for a couple of years until eventually he got the hang of it.
Robert writes when the song comes to him, about one each month. It takes one-half to two hours to write a song. The best ones often come the fastest. Polishing and learning a song takes a couple of weeks.