Track listing
- A1 Dry Land Farm 2:03
- A2 Where the West Winds...Have Blow'd 2:07
- A3 You've Never Seen Me Cry 2:13
- A4 I Wish I Was Only Workin' 3:28
- A5 Dirt Road Song 2:14
- A6 West Texas Waltz 4:22
- B1 They Say It's a Good Land 2:59
- B2 I Grew to Be a Stranger 1:58
- B3 Texas Air 4:08
- B4 Little Coyote Waltz 2:16
- B5 Just One Thunderstorm 4:29
- Total length: 32:17
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4 Reviews
Lots of people want to be from Texas. Apparently they sense something more authentic in the image of parched prairie and broad-shouldered cocky men in cowboy hats than in their own backgrounds and backyards.
I don't know, maybe things have changed. Last time I was in Texas last summer, it was mostly obese men and barrel-shaped women laboring nervously from the fat food franchise back to the air conditioned protection of their house-sized SUVs across the parking lot as if fearing sniper fire. Wanna emulate _that_?
Still, the desperate attempts to affect mythical Texan-ness persist. The prehensile who has inhabited the White House since 2000 is one such pretender, having bled our ears coating the nasal nitwit whine he was born and raised with under a phony layer of Texan twang through 8 painful years of presidentially-administered aural torture.
Bobby Zimmerman is another such prefab-accent-dripping poseur. Somehow small town northern Minnesota didn't suit Roberto's wishes to be perceived as a lone cowpoke on the range, thus he affected the intonations of a cross between Woody Guthrie and, less intentionally, the avuncular western B-movie actor Walter Brennan, who, in look and sound, resembled a chicken too scrawny to eat.
Consequently, Zimzim, by singing in a voice rooted 1500 miles south of where he's actually from, gave way to the most irritating vocal imitations ever inspired by one solitary human being. Not only did RZ make a career out of pretending to be someone completely different than who he really is (if indeed he really is anyone), he spawned 30 million insecure imitators who imitate his imitations down to the most affected inflection. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard some suburban boy strumming a guitar while howling "It Ain't me, babe" and trying _not_ to sound exactly like every other wannabe folkie with a sinus infection, (and in so doing, sounding more like Dylan than they possibly could if they weren't trying so hard not to), I could bail out Wall Street and still have enough cash left over to retire comfortably.
Butch Hancock has no such identity issues. He knows where he's from when he sings "I love to smell the rain when it starts falling/yes I love Texas air," and, "bind up your bunions with bandaids and gauze and start dancin' like the dickens to the west Texas waltz."
There's no Talking Greenwich Village coffee house residue behind "This old dirt road is a tough road to travel/somebody built it, but don't ask me who." Butch probly sleeps on a bail of hay ain't yet been throwed in that leaning barn on the album cover, then wakes up just before dawn to go rope some steer after straining coffee into a gasoline jug, using soiled underwear for a filter.
Maybe all Texas is just a movie set for restless, insecure Americans looking for an identity with a drawl, a bow-legged gait, and a sun-stunted squint to emphasize the testosterone not instantly apparent. In which case, Butch Hancock's first record album here may well be the soundtrack.
"There's more to the country than the country can hold," Butch assures us with a Guthrie-esque acoustic guitar flourish before pulling out his harmonica and blowing a Dylan-plays-Guthrie melody, leaving you wondering who's imitating who imitating who.
I don't know, maybe things have changed. Last time I was in Texas last summer, it was mostly obese men and barrel-shaped women laboring nervously from the fat food franchise back to the air conditioned protection of their house-sized SUVs across the parking lot as if fearing sniper fire. Wanna emulate _that_?
Still, the desperate attempts to affect mythical Texan-ness persist. The prehensile who has inhabited the White House since 2000 is one such pretender, having bled our ears coating the nasal nitwit whine he was born and raised with under a phony layer of Texan twang through 8 painful years of presidentially-administered aural torture.
Bobby Zimmerman is another such prefab-accent-dripping poseur. Somehow small town northern Minnesota didn't suit Roberto's wishes to be perceived as a lone cowpoke on the range, thus he affected the intonations of a cross between Woody Guthrie and, less intentionally, the avuncular western B-movie actor Walter Brennan, who, in look and sound, resembled a chicken too scrawny to eat.
Consequently, Zimzim, by singing in a voice rooted 1500 miles south of where he's actually from, gave way to the most irritating vocal imitations ever inspired by one solitary human being. Not only did RZ make a career out of pretending to be someone completely different than who he really is (if indeed he really is anyone), he spawned 30 million insecure imitators who imitate his imitations down to the most affected inflection. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard some suburban boy strumming a guitar while howling "It Ain't me, babe" and trying _not_ to sound exactly like every other wannabe folkie with a sinus infection, (and in so doing, sounding more like Dylan than they possibly could if they weren't trying so hard not to), I could bail out Wall Street and still have enough cash left over to retire comfortably.
Butch Hancock has no such identity issues. He knows where he's from when he sings "I love to smell the rain when it starts falling/yes I love Texas air," and, "bind up your bunions with bandaids and gauze and start dancin' like the dickens to the west Texas waltz."
There's no Talking Greenwich Village coffee house residue behind "This old dirt road is a tough road to travel/somebody built it, but don't ask me who." Butch probly sleeps on a bail of hay ain't yet been throwed in that leaning barn on the album cover, then wakes up just before dawn to go rope some steer after straining coffee into a gasoline jug, using soiled underwear for a filter.
Maybe all Texas is just a movie set for restless, insecure Americans looking for an identity with a drawl, a bow-legged gait, and a sun-stunted squint to emphasize the testosterone not instantly apparent. In which case, Butch Hancock's first record album here may well be the soundtrack.
"There's more to the country than the country can hold," Butch assures us with a Guthrie-esque acoustic guitar flourish before pulling out his harmonica and blowing a Dylan-plays-Guthrie melody, leaving you wondering who's imitating who imitating who.
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Certainly Dylan-influenced in terms of both vocals and harmonica, but this is even folkier than Bob's early stuff, and more country to boot. This is true farmhand twang, sang without self-consciousness or pretension, and the best of the songs here - "I Wish I Was Only Workin'," "West Texas Waltz," "I Grew to Be a Stranger," "Texas Air" - are the unquestioned highlights of Hancock's career. Butch's way with words rivals the best of his peers, and his guitar playing is fluid and graceful. The spare production and arrangements bring the songwriting to the forefront, and it serves this album perfectly as it's as good a set of tractor folk tunes as you're likely to find.
EDIT 1.5 years later: I was in Wyoming when I wrote my original review for this, so I don't know what I was thinking. Out West, faced with the vast emptiness of the incredible American landmass, there's nothing quite like this album. This is for those long drives when you've got nothing to think about, when there's nothing to look at but rows of corn and oceans of dirt. Even now, back home, I think about and listen to these songs on a regular basis - it's such a personal, beautiful record, made by someone who has big - no, huge - hopes and dreams and is stuck in a small little world. It's a testament to Hancock's personality that it never once sounds sad, then - it's about recognizing the fun and wonder in everything.
It was June in Wyoming, when it rains everyday. This album doesn't jive with that, which is the only reason it wasn't rated high enough to begin with.
EDIT 1.5 years later: I was in Wyoming when I wrote my original review for this, so I don't know what I was thinking. Out West, faced with the vast emptiness of the incredible American landmass, there's nothing quite like this album. This is for those long drives when you've got nothing to think about, when there's nothing to look at but rows of corn and oceans of dirt. Even now, back home, I think about and listen to these songs on a regular basis - it's such a personal, beautiful record, made by someone who has big - no, huge - hopes and dreams and is stuck in a small little world. It's a testament to Hancock's personality that it never once sounds sad, then - it's about recognizing the fun and wonder in everything.
It was June in Wyoming, when it rains everyday. This album doesn't jive with that, which is the only reason it wasn't rated high enough to begin with.
Published
Sorta like Nebraska, only with more laughs.
Published
Tracks: Dry Land Farm; Where the West Winds... Have Blow'd; You've Never Seen Me Cry; I Wish I Was Only Workin'; Dirt Road Song; West Texas Waltz; They Say It's a Good Land; I Grew to Be a Stranger; Texas Air; Little Coyota Waltz; Just One Thunderstorm.
As fine a selection of Butch Hancock songs as you'd care to find.
As fine a selection of Butch Hancock songs as you'd care to find.
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