Butch Hancock
Rolling Stone magazine described him as “a raspy-voiced West Texas mystic with an equal affinity for romantic border balladry and Zen paradox.” Along with Lubbock-bred childhood pals Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock has also been active in their group work as The Flatlanders. His solo album, Own and Own, released in ‘91, contains his “If I Were a Bluebird,” made popular by Emmylou Harris. His songs have also been recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker and the Texas Tornadoes. Musician is not the only hat Butch Hancock wears; he is an architect, a visual artist, and leads rafting and adventure tours in Big Bend National Park that feature nightly concerts. His craggy singing, acoustic guitar strumming, harmonica tooting, and foot stomping are raw as a West Texas wind and his songs carry on the Americana tradition of Woody Guthrie, early Dylan, and Hank Williams Sr. The Hancock family lives in Terlingua, TX, where he is building a solar-powered Chihuahuan Desert residence of his own design. Butch recently toured nationally with The Flatlanders, which led to two new Flatlander CDs. Last year, he wrote, recorded, and produced War and Peace, his most recent CD. An exhibit of Hancock’s drawings, journals, and photographs is featured currently at the CUE Art Foundation in New York.
Contributions:
- Volume 3: Seeing, Chapter 08: "Sparks From the Campfire"
