The news that Nashville rock ’n’ roller Webb Wilder was readying the release of his first new album in five years, Hillbilly Speedball, sent me back to his 1989 full-length Hybrid Vigor. Produced by his longtime associate and fellow Hattiesburg, Miss., native R.S. Field, Hybrid was Wilder’s shot on a major label after he’d released his debut album It Came From Nashville in 1986. In retrospect, the combination of New Wave rock and what I guess you’d call Received Classic Rock on Wilder’s early albums reflected an earlier version of Nashville, when no one had figured out how to integrate Faces/Rolling Stones/Savoy Brown rock with New Wave and country to create Americana music. Wilder, who turns 71 in May, makes like a New Wave-influenced Southern rocker with a healthy sense of irony and a feel for the nuances of all that 1970s British Invasion-influenced power pop throughout Hillbilly Speedball. Wilder has great taste in cover versions — he tips his cowboy hat to songs by Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison, Chuck Berry and, yes, Savoy Brown, whose 1971 rocker “Tell Mama” gets an Americana-style overhaul. Still, my favorite moment on the album is his concise, carefully orchestrated tribute to power pop itself, “Coupla Good Moves,” which is one of Wilder’s best tunes from any era. File Hillbilly Speedball on the shelf with Tommy Womack’s recent albums — Nashville rock lives forever. EDD HURT