DEADPAN comedy veteran Rich Hall has been combining music and comedy on stage for years now, most notably as the US comic's country music peddling alter-ego, Otis Lee Crenshaw.
However, Otis and his mirthsome music tales of woe have recently been put out to pasture (for the time-being, anyway) after over a decade of award-winning whiskey-fuelled misadventures in life and love – the latter mostly involving women named Brenda.
These days, live comedy crowds can whoop it up at Rich Hall's Hoedown, the UK-based Virginian's hugely popular 50/50 blend of live band-backed country-flavoured musical comedy and stand-up, featuring improvised compositions based on information gleaned from members of the audience.
"It's a really great show," enthuses Hall (62) of his travelling Hoedown, which began as an Edinburgh Fringe show in 2011 and is still packing them in at venues around Britain.
"It's lots of fun – but that's not what I'll be bringing to Belfast. That's just going to be me doing my old trusty reliable stand-up show, for which I am known and loved throughout the world.
"I am bringing a guitar, though, because there's always music in my shows. I just won't be smuggling in the other five people in my Hoedown Band.
"No-one wants to shell-out for that in Belfast!"
Band or no band, once Hall picks up that acoustic guitar you can expect to hear plenty of requests for one of his new original compositions, Working Dog,
This memorable ode to the up-and-at-'em antics of the humble Border Collie featured in the recent BBC documentary, Rich Hall's Countrier Than You, his engrossing and amusing exploration of the history and evolution of American country music.
The latest in a series of Beeb-backed factual examinations of American history and culture to be presented by the US comedian, the film featured Working Dog being performed in a variety of styles by Hall and various country players from Tennessee to Texas, illustrating the subtle musical nuances which distinguish the genre's various strands from one another.
Funnily enough, this appropriately hyperactive number also happens to be the title track of Hall's new album of comedy country tunes, the follow-up to 2013's chucklesomely titled collection, Waitin' On A Grammy.
These most recent pair of CDs are just the latest in a series of musical releases dating back through the Otis Lee Crenshaw years, which begs the question: is Rich Hall really just a frustrated musician who happens to be damn funny?
"I think I was a frustrated musician," admits the guitar-picking, country hollering comic. "But now I'm fairly fulfilled. I'm only frustrated in the sense that I could just be a whole lot better.
"I always thought I could write funny songs that aren't like a lot of stuff you hear, where someone just takes a familiar song and rewrites the lyrics to it. I hate that s***, I really hate it: if you're gonna do it, do something original.
"Then seeing people like Bill Bailey, Tim Minchin and Flight of The Conchords – those were the acts who inspired me to wanna get better at it, you know? You look at them and think, 'OK, that's how musical comedy should be done', because the songs kind of hold up on their own – but they are funny too."
Which brings us back to the genius of Working Dog, already a firm favourite with the Hoedown crowds.
"It's a pretty simple song and we used it to show how it could take on the various forms of country music," says Hall of his canine-themed country classic.
"We recorded a version in the studio which is kind of bluegrassy, but not as bluegrassy as when the guys in Nashville played it.
"I'm not sure how many people watched the show, but since it aired now we get three or four people in the crowd every night yelling out that they wanna hear it – so it's the closest thing we've ever had to a recognisable hit.
"Border Collie owners are buying the album and having me sign it to their dogs. It's all getting a bit weird."
Just as the Hall's comedy has always been based on spontaneity, the Hoedown show is no different, as he explains.
"It's very improvisational," he tells me, "so no two shows are the same and there's a lot of stuff made up on the night, y'know, just playin' with the audience and trying to celebrate the working class ethic of Brits – which means singing songs about things that men do when they go to work. That's kind of the essence of a lot of country music anyway."
Not knowing what will be coming back at him from the audience is what Hall thrives on, especially as he has already learned that some folks in the front row are definitely weirder than others when it comes to their day to day activities.
"I don't know what these people are going to come up with or what they're gonna say," he tells me, "what their occupations are gonna be or how long they've been married or any of that stuff.
"You just ask them very simple stuff and then construct an entire overblown scenario about the whole thing and make a song out of it.
"One guy told me he was a biologist who 'sexed' bacteria, then another said he ran an online porn site. At first we were all thinking 'no, you don't' – but then it became clear that he probably did."
The comedian admits that stepping away from the Hoedown show's 50/50 mix of live music and comedy to do a more joke-centric show is not that hard for him at this stage of his 40-year career.
"Stand-up is easier because you don't have to rely on other people. You can switch gears as much as you want – with music, once you start something you're pretty much locked into it. And you have to rehearse a lot more too.
"I enjoy both and it's fun to play with other musicians, but there's just a lot more organisation involved, because the whole band has to learn some kind of musical template.
"Whatever the words are that we plug in, they have to know what to play under them – so there is a structure to it. Whereas, with stand-up, you can just wing it and talk about whatever you want.
"In Belfast, I just have to show up, walk on stage and hope that the mic's on – that's it."
:: Rich Hall, Friday May 5, CQAF Marquee, Belfast. Tickets on sale now via CQAF.com
