Cashville411.com

Remember Webb Wilder, Gibson Flying V, the last of the full-grown men, the guy whose credo is “Work hard. Rock hard. Sleep hard. Eat hard. Grow big. Wear glasses if you need ‘em.”? Well, if you forgot about Wilder for a minute, his new live album, Born to be Wilder, is all you need to remember that he is still a towering figure, both physically and musically, in the world of roots rock.

Recorded on August 19, 2005 at WorkPlay in Birmingham, Born to be Wilder features 15 songs selected from Wilder’s live concert DVD, Tough It Out!. He was backed by The Beatnecks: guitarists Tony Bowles and George Bradfute, bassist Tom Comet and drummer Jimmy Lester.

Wilder has often said that he and The Beatnecks “play both kinds of music, rock and roll.” On Born to be Wilder, they prove it with 56 minutes and 19 seconds of blood-tight, hard-hitting Southern rock. The band carries on a now-rare Southern rock tradition, the three-guitar attack. Can you say fat power chords? This trio of axe-slingers are so familiar with one another, their skillful interplay can be otherworldly.

The record includes material from all six of Wilder’s critically acclaimed studio albums, underscoring that he has consistently released high-quality rock & roll. And like the six studio albums, these recordings were produced by Wilder’s longtime creative partner, R.S. Field, who penned nine of the songs included here.

For a live album, the recording quality is impressive. It is easy to forget you are not listening to a studio recording. For years, fans had asked Wilder to release a live album, so when he and Field prepared for the filming and recording of the live concert DVD, they made sure the audio would be of the highest quality possible. Amazingly, because of advances in recording technologies, some of these recordings sound better than the original studio tracks. This is particularly true of “One Taste of the Bait,” “Poolside,” and “How Long Can She Last,” all of which appeared originally on Wilder’s 1986 debut, It Came From Nashville.

For the uninitiated, this is an excellent introduction to the Webb Wilder ouvre. For those familiar with his work, it is a chance to revisit some of the more memorable characters who have peopled the Wilder mythos, including “The Human Cannonball,” Miss Missy From Ol’ Hong Kong,” and “Louisiana Hannah.” For either, Born to be Wilder offers a strong selection of both kinds of music — the rock and the roll.