A & E

But there's a sure remedy for whatever ails him.

"I start to make music, and it's like Prozac, so to speak," says Hancock, who performs Saturday at Club Cafe, South Side.

It's easy to see why. Hancock's new release, "Tulsa," is one of those effervescent albums that is almost impossible to dislike. It's upbeat in a country sort of way, but not the country that is heard on commercial radio stations. Hancock's music would not be out of place reverberating from one of those old tabletop Motorola radios with tubes, and is drawing comparisons to the work of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys -- after years of his music being likened to that of Hank Williams.

It's good company, Hancock says.

"Those are pretty good people to be compared to," he says. "Now Milli Vanilli, that would be terrible 'cause they weren't even singing. I don't mind the comparisons. They have to compare you to something, so I never get mad. You sound like who you draw from, and I draw from my roots."

Those roots first took hold while Hancock was growing up in Texas. As a teen, he traveled the Lone Star State, playing juke joints and honky-tonks. But he delayed his musical career for a six-year stint in the Marines, starting in 1984. When he got out, music called again, and his break came when Lloyd Maines, a noted pedal steel guitarist -- and father of the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines -- took an interest in Hancock, producing his first album, "Thunderstorms and Neon Signs."

Since then, Hancock has been doggedly building his career, playing as many as 200 shows in a year. But, even as he draws comparison to country avatars, he insists it's "just what I do. I'm not trying to evoke anything. I'm just playing this type of music that you can't find on the radio anymore."

"Tulsa" is filled with just that. The songs range from the title track and its big band feel to the aptly named "Drinkin' Blues," "Goin' Home Blues" and "No Sleep Blues" that serve as reminders of how country and blues share the same theme.

But why call an album after a city that isn't exactly regarded a garden spot, or isn't regarded at all, by those outside of Oklahoma.

"Tulsa is just like any other town," Hancock says. "There's a lot of history behind it. And, when I go there, I have a lot of friends there who come out to the shows and swing it pretty hard."

One of the best songs on "Tulsa" is "Highway Bound," a slow-burning tune that features some of the prettiest lap steel guitar one could ever hope to hear, and longing, wistful lyrics that fairly size up Hancock's life:

When I sleep on the road/I just shut my eyes/All my hopes and dreams/Are reborn when I hear those tires whine.

"I live to play, and I play to live," Hancock says. "Everybody is into music for different reasons, and sometimes people start out doing what they think the industry wants and trying to make money. ... I think my stuff is a little bit more swinging than people are used to hearing, and I don't think I'm ever going to change."

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