Butch Hancock

As an associate from the groundbreaking Flatlanders, singer/songwriter Butch Hancock helped kick-start the progressive nation movement from the ’70s. Like a single artist, Hancock documented some country-folk albums for his personal impartial Rainlight label, which showcased his literate wordplay, quirky laughter, and dried out, Dylan-esque vocal delivery. Heading the independent path certainly price Hancock some name acknowledgement and wider publicity, but he do earn a dedicated cult following, specifically in his indigenous Tx. Hancock was created in the western Tx city of Lubbock in 1945 and was raised on a plantation, writing his 1st songs while traveling his father’s tractor. In senior high school, he began playing music with close friends Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Joe Ely, fellow long-haired intellectuals who distributed a distaste for industrial nation. Hancock joined architectural college after graduation, but ultimately left to come back to his family’s plantation in Lubbock. He reconnected with Gilmore and Ely, and in 1970 the three created a band known as the Flatlanders. In 1972, they journeyed to Nashville for any recording program with Plantation Information, a low-budget offshoot from the past-its-prime Sunlight label. When their 1st solitary flopped, their lone recording, Jimmie Dale & the Flatlanders, was hardly released in incredibly limited amounts in 1973, as well as the group users gradually proceeded to go their separate methods. Nevertheless, when Ely became an acclaimed single designer in the past due ’70s, he drew greatly from Gilmore and Hancock’s songwriting catalogs, getting Hancock classics like “Western world Tx Waltz,” “EASILY Had been a Bluebird” (both included in Emmylou Harris), “She Under no circumstances Spoke Spanish if you ask me” (included in the Tx Tornados), and “Boxcars” to some wider viewers. Ely’s recordings helped spark fascination with Hancock, but Hancock came back to music by himself terms, moving towards the intensifying nation hotbed of Austin and setting up his very own Rainlight label. In 1978, he released his first record, West Tx Waltzes and Dust-Blown Tractor Music, a spare, basic collection that spotlighted his amazing lyrical capabilities. The double recording The Wind’s Dominion adopted a year later on, and attempted a broader musical palette and fuller plans. Released in 1980, Gemstone Hill featured a complete backing music group, and 1981’s Firewater was a casual live arranged; both continued to create his cult status on the Tx roots music picture. Hancock subsequently required a rest from recording for quite some time, pursuing his passions in photography and video, and came back in 1985 with Yella Rose With Marce Lacoutre; Break up & Slide adopted in 1986. During another break from documenting, Jimmie Dale Gilmore made a decision to go back to his single career, and because of the Flatlanders’ burgeoning story, his variations of many Hancock compositions once more renewed desire for the songwriter. In 1989, the bluegrass-oriented Sugars Hill label released Own & Personal, a compilation of shows from Hancock’s early albums. In the mean time, Hancock and Gilmore toured Australia collectively, which led to the live duo recording Two Highways; Hancock also released Reason behind the Cactus by himself label in 1991. Another compilation for Sugars Hill arrived in 1993, that one known as Own just how Over Right here, and the next year, Hancock added tunes to Chippy, a musical theatre piece in regards to a Tx prostitute co-written by Ely. In 1995 his first-ever non-compilation studio room project for another label premiered, the acclaimed Sugars Hill arranged Eats Away the night time, that was hailed as you of his most completely realized recordings. Within the years that adopted, Hancock re-released a lot of his aged albums digitally, and in addition issued the brand new Rainlight established You Coulda Walked All over the world in 1999. He toured using the reunited Flatlanders in 2000, and he shifted from Austin to the tiny desert city of Terlingua; there he proved helpful being a white-water rafting information and came back to architecture, creating, and building his own house. In 2002, the Flatlanders released the well-received reunion record Now Once again. Hancock himself released the politically billed War and Peacefulness in 2006.