Butch Hancock - Biography
West Texas singer-songwriter Butch Hancock is one of country music’s true rugged individuals. With a vocal style and artistic stance reminiscent of such offbeat predecessors as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, a keen lyrical sense and a knack for evocative imagery, Hancock’s compositions have influenced a large cross-section of progressive country and Americana artists—no small feat considering that Hancock has conducted his career, for the most part, as a below the radar performer whose majority of albums were both self-recorded and released. These independent statements were, in turn, strictly word of mouth, through the grapevine phenomena, but Hancock’s often underground modus operandi also steadily built his mystique and reputation as idiosyncratic master of freewheeling, expressive and original country music.
Born George Norman Hancock on July 12, 1945 in Lubbock, Texas, Hancock grew up on a farm and legend has it that he composed his first songs while riding on his father’s tractor. By high school, Hancock was a shaggy headed, freethinking iconoclast and quickly fell in with like-minded contemporaries Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Each was deeply enamored with country music yet repulsed by the commercial pandering of the Nashville machine and, by 1971, the three friends had formed The Flatlanders, a short-lived but influential band which was definitely ahead of its time. While The Flatlanders recorded demos and a few of their own sessions, nothing came to light until they traveled to Nashville to complete one album, Jimmie Dale & the Flatlanders (1973 Plantation Records), but the company pressed very few copies, distribution was poor and the disc’s impact was minimal.
Although another Texas visionary, Jerry Jeff Walker, did all he could to assist the struggling group, his aid ultimately resulted in a solo deal for Ely, who featured Hancock’s material prominently on his own releases throughout the late 1970s. Hancock himself issued his solo debut, West Texas Waltzes and Dust-Blown Tractor Tunes (1978 Rainlight Records), a stark, folky showcase for his powerful writing that was followed by an ambitious, rock-informed Texas-sized two-disc set The Wind’s Dominion (1979 Rainlight). He followed with the saxophone-limned Diamond Hill (1980 Rainlight). During this period, he also frequently traveled and performed with Ely (who at the time was touring and collaborating with UK punk spearheads, The Clash), which helped introduce Hancock and his great songs—like “Suckin’ on a Big Bottle of Gin,” “She Never Spoke Spanish to Me” and “Dallas”—to a much broader audience.
Always following his own distinct path, Hancock did not limit himself solely to music—he’s an accomplished architect, designer, builder and photographer—but by the late 1980s he was again performing and recording extensively. He did a six-night stand at an Austin club and it resulted in the No 2 Alike series of self-issued, sold by subscription cassettes—140 songs worth—followed by studio set Cause of the Cactus (1991 self-released cassette). Soon many of his earlier recordings were repackaged and issued on Own & Own (1989 Sugar Hill) and Own the Way Over Here (1993 Sugar Hill), testament to Hancock’s ever-burgeoning cult of followers. The acclaimed Eats Away the Night (1995 Sugar Hill) cemented Hancock’s reputation as a penetrating underworld troubadour and, in 2000, the long neglected but never forgotten Flatlanders reunited for a series of well-received live shows and subsequently all new albums Now Again (2002 New West), Wheels of Fortune (New West 2004) and Hills and Valleys (2009 New West).
Unpredictable and unrivaled, Hancock’s legacy continues to expand.
