It's Alternative Country supergroup time again folks this time in the guise of The Flatlanders.
They hail from Lubbock on the Texas plains.
Indeed when I saw them at the sadly lamented Arches one of them (I can't remember which) claimed that their name was derived from the fact that the land was so flat that you could see 100 miles in any direction and 200 if you stood on top of a sardine can.
As the picture indicates there are three of them who started of as a band in 1972 and who all have gone on to enjoy successful solo career getting together sporadically to record and perform as The Flatlanders.
A trivial fact about each one of them
- Jimmie Dale Gilmore played a bowler called Smokey in The Great Lewbowski
- Joe Ely toured with The Clash and sings backing vocals on Should I Stay or Should I Go?
- Butch Hancock is a talented photographer who has a gallery called Lubbock or Leave It
Here they are together and seperately
I saw Joe several times in the early 1980's, with and without The Clash. Mick Jones introduced him one night as the new Hank Williams. Legendary Clash roadie Johnny Green left the only band that matters and moved to Austin and work for Joe.
ReplyDeleteButch played a three night stint at The Borderline in the mid-nineties where he performed a totally different set each evening, with no repeats. I got to two of those nights, both of which were bloody marvelous. I never have caught up with Jimmie Dale though, or any of the occasional Flatlanders reunions, much to my regret. Great selections here CC.
I do like a good bit of trivia CC, particularly like the name of Butch Hancock's gallery. Nice quartet of tunes today...
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