Amazon.com The Flatlanders--Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock--first came together in Lubbock, Texas, in 1971. Along with musical saw player Steve Wesson and mandolinist Tony Pearson, they recorded one of the great "lost" albums of all time, a quirky acoustic-music gem that finally saw the light of day in 1990, when Rounder released the aptly named More a Legend Than a Band. Ely, Gilmore, and Hancock have since gone on to forge distinguished musical careers: Ely as a Texas roots rocker, Gilmore as a mystical country crooner, and Hancock as a celebrated songwriter. Now Again, produced by Ely, marks the group's first album-length collaboration in 30 years. And if it lacks the charm of their first effort--there's nothing here that compares with Gilmore's "Dallas" and "Tonight I'm Gonna Go Downtown"--it still has a certain appeal that comes from putting three old friends together in the studio and rolling some tape. With the exception of Utah Phillips's "Going Away," all the songs were written by Ely, Gilmore, and Hancock, and they sing them in various duo and trio combinations. Some work better than others--standouts include the bouncy rocker "My Wildest Dreams Grow Wilder Every Day" and the country ballad "Down on Filbert's Rise"--but all are worth a listen. --David Hill Product description NEW Combo BLUWAVS CD and FLAC FILE About the Artist The windy, expansive universe of West Texas around the town of Lubbock is distilled from just two elements: the land and the sky. They keep one another balanced in symmetrical counterpoint, with the horizon as a distant point of reference. In this most unadorned of landscapes, sunlight and shadow charge the Plains and the overarching sky with improbably transcendental power. This is the panorama that gave rise to the music of The Flatlanders. Today, the three prime component members of The FlatlandersJoe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock--are better known as individual singer-songwriters. But The Flatlanders was the breeding ground for three extraordinary bodies of work, and the pull, which the band continues to exert on both its alumni and its fans, remains strong today. The Flatlanders--highly untutored in the ways of the music business-- were all but laughed out of Nashville on the one trip they made to Music City in 1971. The fledgling group traveled to Nashville with a demo tape that had been ineptly dubbed "upside down and backwards," according to Gilmore. Eventually, the band recorded for Shelby Singleton's Plantation Records, which released a few copies of a Flatlanders album on eight-track tape in 1972. In 1980, the tracks re-surfaced on England's Charly label as One Road More. Since 1990, the album has been available on Rounder Records as More A Legend Than A Band. The first sound that listeners heard of The Flatlanders on their one and only recorded effort was the mournful, high-lonesome voice of Jimmie Dale singing one of his own songs called "Dallas." The opening lines of that tune harbor what is still, perhaps, his most potent and poignant image: "Have you ever seen Dallas/From a DC-9 at night?" Gilmore went on a series of musical and spiritual quests, which culminated in a trio of highly regarded albums, After Awhile, Spinning Around the Sun, and Braver, Newer World. Country-and-Eastern music, some folks dubbed his songs. Butch Hancock pursued his own idiosyncratic path, churning out albums on his own independent label (Emmylou Harris covered his lovely "If You Were A Bluebird"), and winding up as a river-guide/balladeer down in the Big Bend desert country of far West Texas. Ely has performed with everyone from The Clash to Bruce Springsteen to The Rolling Stones. His ferocious energy, reminiscent of one of his West Texas cyclones, and his dusty, borderland romanticism mark him as the natural heir to Panhandle rockers such as Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings and Buddy Knox. Their New West Records debut, Now Again, with its dualistic title that looks both forward and back, is not a definitive summation of their life's work. It is, however, a new turn of the wheel for three of Texas' most inspirational singer/songwriters, and a welcome treat for all of their fans. --John T. Davis, ISBN13: B000065V9X ISBN10: B000065V9X Material Type: audioCD
