Country Crooner Butch Hancock in Concert Sept. 27th
Butch Hancock, photo courtesy of consequencesofsound.com.
With a long string of recorded songs and albums, Butch Hancock has been called one of the finest songwriters of our time and is acknowledged by his peers and critics as one of the premiere singer-songwriters Texas has ever produced. Some argue he’s one of the best in the world. His tunes evoke visions of wind-swept dry-plains and his lyrics are profoundly imaginative, often displaying for his listeners the miracles that occur in the ordinary through creative irony and metaphors. His style of writing has often been associated to that of Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie and his songs have been covered by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Robert Earl Keen and a host of others.
Hancock is also a founding member of the famous country rock group, The Flatlanders, along with his lifelong friends, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, a band they formed in 1972. Through his stellar career, Hancock has written and recorded several iconic albums, some of them sparse and simple, others as big as all outdoors. After moving to the progressive country hotbed of Austin in the mid-70s, he started Rainlight, his own record label which released the classical “West Texas Waltzes” and “Dust-Blown Tractor Tunes” in 1978.
In the years that followed Butch Hancock kept right on releasing albums filled with emotion and memory, a foundation that cemented his world-wide reputation as a master wordsmith. In 1990, Hancock, and more than two dozen musician friends performed a Guinness Book of World Records worthy event entitled “No Two Alike” where the band played for six nights in a row of live performances in Austin’s famed Cactus Cafe, recording 140 of his original songs. The real accomplishment was that they played this marathon show without repeating a single song. Hancock has studiously rejected playing to the needs of the commercial music markets, insisting that his music is an end in itself, recording and releasing much of it on his own and spending his energies on other things than a musical career. Not widely known is that Hancock is also a talented photographer. He owned a gallery named “Lubbock or Leave it” in the 1980s and 1990s, and has shown his photographs and drawings at Bluebird Gallery in Wimberley, Texas.
Butch Hancock will play a two set-show at AMSDconcerts on Friday, September 27, with show starting at 7:30 p.m. There will be ample time to meet Hancock and thank him for decades of creative music, and cop an autograph if that’s your thing. Tickets are $22 for rows 8 and up and $47 for the first 8 rows including a four course dinner at DeMille’s Italian on Adams Avenue, just across the street. For reservations, visit www.amsdconcerts.com.
Category: Entertainment
