It took Rich Hopkins five minutes to pen “Walkaway Again,” the final track on his new Rich Hopkins and Luminarios CD “My Way or the Highway.”
“The whole record just kind of came naturally as far as the music,” Hopkins said on the eve of the record’s release party on Saturday, Jan. 28, at Club Congress. “Musically we do a little more experimenting now.”
Like mixing their signature psychedelic desert rock with a little more pop and incorporating spoken word on the opening cut “Angel of the Cascades.” Hopkins rocks a Neil Young vibe on “Walkaway Again” then busts into an impressive electric guitar concerto in the middle of the acoustic pop Mayan love story of “Chan Kah.” Dissonant rock and ambient sounds punctuate the Hopkins-penned instrumental “Journey to Palenque,” while Southern rock peeks out in the country picker “Hell or High Water (Married Go Round).”
The song “Meant For Mo” perhaps more than anything else illustrates his experimental state of mind.
“Meant For Mo” is the only one of the album’s dozen songs not written exclusively by Hopkins and his Luminarios bandmate/wife/songwriting partner Lisa Novak. The pair share credit with Cesar Aguirre, Hopkins’ pal from his volunteer work at Casa Maria Soup Kitchen on the south side.
About a year ago when he was just starting work on the album, Hopkins was looking for a little inspiration, something to shake things up. So one day he got to talking with Aguirre, who worked at soup kitchen where Hopkins was a longtime, regular volunteer.
Hopkins said he asked the younger man to write something that spoke to life in Tucson’s Hispanic community. What Aguirre came back with truly blew Hopkins’ mind.
“For it to turn out that great, that kind of genius blows me away,” Hopkins, 56 gushed, describing the song as “Pink Floyd meets Neil Young.”
Aguirre recorded the song’s rap and will join Hopkins, Novak and the rest of the Tucson Luminarios crew — Damon Barnaby, Duane Hollis, Ernie Mendoza — for Saturday’s release party at 7 p.m. at Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St. Admission is free.
