Ray Wylie Hubbard has released swampy new track “Dog or Wolf” which instructs the listener on how to tell the difference between the two when you hear them howling at the moon. The song comes from his new album, Reel 2 Reel 4 Real, out August 21st, 2026, via Bordello Records/Soundly Music/Thirty Tigers.

The answer? “A dog will lick your hand / a wolf will eat your face.” This gruesome answer is “like a scary fable recounted around a camp fire late at night under a full moon.”

Hubbard says:

The great singer songwriter from Jay and the Americans, Marty Kupersmith and I were discussing the secrets of the universe and deep philosophy. The conversation turned to how can you tell if it’s a dog or a wolf howling at the moon and voila’ we wrote it.

Ray Wylie Hubbard’s latest album Reel 2 Reel 4 Real is meant to be played loud. Over the course of his long career Hubbard has written many serious songs, but these new songs are all for the “Wanna Rock and Roll” set. 

When asked to sum up the new record, Hubbard says:

You know, a lot of artists when they put out a record, they go, ‘This is the best record I’ve done up to this point. But I’m not going to say this is the best record I’ve done. I’ll say it’s the best record I’ve ever heard.

He adds, in the light of his upcoming 80th birthday:

This will probably be my last album. I mean I still like writing songs, in fact I’ve got so many damn songs that I don’t know what to do with them, including a really cool one I just wrote with Mike Campbell. But we’re thinking that after putting this album out, we’re just going to throw out singles as I finish them, and see what happens.