By Lindol French
Who the fuck is Unknown Hinson?
I found myself asking this very question about a month ago when I discovered that he’d be playing a show at Charlotte’s Unknown Brewery this Friday, August 10th. More importantly, I asked this question to Ryan Williams, who booked the Unknown for the gig at the eponymous brewery.
“You know “Squidbillies” on Adult Swim? Unknown Hinson sings the theme song and voices Early Cuyler”. That was more than enough to get me on board. If you are a fan of “Squidbillies”, Early needs no introduction. If not, I’ll do my best.
The patriarch of a family of hillbilly mud squid in the mountains of North Georgia, Early is a walking (slithering? crawling? mudthrusting? Not sure there is a word which accurately describes how a redneck squid propels himself through the North Georgia hills), talking, hooting, hollering Id, in the Freudian sense. Bereft of ego, let alone superego, Early truckboattrucks his way through life, fueled by party liquor and a total lack of conscience or consequence. He is a magnificent disaster, the basest instincts of man, personified, or mud-squidified, or whatever.
Early Cuyler is spectacular, and Unknown Hinson is Early Cuyler.
Stuart Daniel Baker, born in 1954 in Albermarle North Carolina, is Unknown Hinson. A music teacher and studio musician, he created his alter ego for “The Wild Wild South”, a Charlotte public access show featuring concert footage and comedy sketches. In 1995, Baker created a spin-off called “The Unknown Hinson Show”, which won Creative Loafing Charlotte’s “Best of” poll for Public Access Television Show four years in a row. Do with that info what you will, but regardless of how much faith you put in that other local rag, a star was born.
Yeah, yeah, that’s all well and good, Lindol, but can he fucking shred?
Oh yes, dear reader, he can fucking shred. This ain’t an improv show. This is a rock show. Unknown played lead guitar in Billy Bob Thornton’s band The Boxmasters. He’s shared the stage with The Reverend Horton Heat, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ed King and Hank III, the last of which has a tattoo of Unknown’s face on his bicep. I’m pretty sure Hank Williams’ grandson getting a tattoo of you on his body is the American equivalent of Knighthood.
Now, is the show gonna be funny? Yeah, indubitably. With songs like “Pregnant Again”, “I ain’t Afraid of your Husband”, “Put out or Get Out”, and “Your Man is Gay”, he has been known to get some laughs, but not at the cost of the music. Never at the cost of the music. So break into your party liquor stash, wash your truckboattruck and come on down to the Unknown Brewery this Friday for a barn burner. See you there.