T For Texas

Not much time...I’m leaving for the airport in a matter of minutes...Jodi and I are headed to Dallas to visit my sister at TCU. My bro is driving down from Illinois too, so it should be a fun, if brief, coupla days. I’m not a big fan of Bush Country, save for the island of comparable sanity that is the state’s capital, Austin, but it’s all good. There is, in fact, a lot about Texas to like, not least of which is the band of brothers that makes up the alt-country supergroup The Flatlanders.



Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, and Joe Ely—all formidable acts in their own right. Once upon a time, in the early seventies, they played together as the Flatlanders, before moving on to their respective solo careers, while still remaining the best of friends and collaborators. A few years ago, they shocked everybody by regrouping as the Flatlanders and issuing a number of new records, thirty years after their original formation. I saw them at a club in Boulder in ’02, and it was easily one of the best shows I saw that year. But while the new records were pretty damn good, they still couldn’t touch the band’s original sessions from the early seventies, some of the best tunes I’ve ever heard. Here’s a couple of my favorite numbers from those sessions, in honor of the city of Dallas and all that is good about Texas.

Oh yeah, and fuck Tom Delay!

The Flatlanders – Dallas
The Flatlanders – Waiting for a Train


N/P The Beau Brummels – Gentle Wanderin’ Ways