Butch Hancock
Butch Hancock (aka George Hancock ; born July 12, 1945 in Lubbock , Texas ) is an American songwriter and country singer.
Career
Hancock grew up in Lubbock, Texas, the hometown of Buddy Holly . He wrote his first songs at the wheel of his father's tractor.
In 1971, Hancock and his former school friends Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore founded the folk-country formation Flatlanders , which today are considered to be the pioneers of the alternative country movement.
Under his own name, Hancock is primarily known as a songwriter. His poetic and humorous compositions - including She Never Spoke Spanish to Me , If You Were A Bluebird , Boxcars , Tennessee Is Not The State I'm In and West Texas Waltz - were best known through the interpretations of Joe Ely. On Ely's first four albums there were a total of 13 songs written by Hancock. Other artists who covered songs by Butch Hancock included Emmylou Harris , Jerry Jeff Walker , Rosie Flores , Linda Ronstadt and the Texas Tornados . The Austiner duo Boxcars even named themselves after the most frequently covered song Hancocks.
As a solo artist, Hancock remained an insider tip that retained his independence from the music industry. He sold his albums through his own record label Rainlight , sometimes even deliberately doing without the barcode , which meant that the big record stores and department store chains could not have included his CDs in their programs for technical reasons. Nevertheless, Hancock, whose nasal singing at times reminds of Bob Dylan , gained a loyal following over time, and his tours also took him to Europe and Australia. In the late 1980s, bluegrass label Sugar Hill Records showed an interest in Hancock and released two compilations of old material. In 1994, Eats Away The Night - also on Sugar Hill - was the first Hancock studio album to appear outside of the Rainlight label. In Germany the label Glitterhouse took over the distribution for the record. Since 2000, Hancock has also been working with the Flatlanders again.
Hancock had already caused a sensation in the scene: in a record-breaking series of six concerts on six evenings in a row, he recorded 140 of his own songs with more than two dozen musicians, which he released on several cassettes under the title No Two Alike . In 2010 he repeated this action - with another 140 songs under the title No Two More Alike .
In 1998 Butch Hancock was inducted into the Buddy Holly Walk of Fame in Lubbock.
In addition to being a musician, the former marathon runner Hancock works as a painter , draftsman , photographer , architect , gallery owner and leader of rafting tours. Butch Hancock lives in Austin , Texas.
Discography
Studio albums
- 1978: West Texas Waltzes and Dust-Blown Tractor Tunes (Rainlight)
- 1979: The Wind's Dominion (Rainlight)
- 1980: Diamond Hill (Rainlight)
- 1981: 1981: A Spare Odyssey (Rainlight)
- 1981: Firewater ... Seeks Its Own Level (Rainlight)
- 1985: Yella Rose (with Marce Lacouture) (Rainlight)
- 1986: Split & Slide II (Rainlight)
- 1987: Cause of the Cactus (with Marce Lacouture) (Rainlight)
- 1990: No Two Alike (14 cassettes) (Rainlight)
- 1994: Eats Away the Night (Sugar Hill / Glitterhouse)
- 1994: Songs From Chippy - Diary of a West Texas Hooker (with Joe Ely and others) ( Hollywood Records )
- 1997: You Coulda Walked Around the World (Rainlight)
- 2007: War and Peace (Two Roads)
Live albums
- 1990: Two Roads: Live In Australia (Virgin; with Jimmie Dale Gilmore )
Compilations
- 1989: Own & Own (Sugar Hill)
- 1993: Own the Way Over Here (Sugar Hill)
Singles
- 1979: Wild Horses Chase The Wind
- 1979: The Wind's Dominion
swell
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. List of covers of Butch Hancock songs
- ↑ http://www.halbneuntheater.de/p98-2/boxcars.htm ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Concert announcement boxcars
- ↑ http://www.butchhancock.net/#!__bio Hancock's description of himself on his homepage
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Concert report on Auston360
- ↑ Buddy Holly Walk of Fame - the names
- ↑ http://www.angelfire.com/mi/jeffmiller/ Page about Hancock - also about rafting tours
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hancock, Butch |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hancock, George |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American songwriter and country singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 12, 1945 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lubbock , Texas, USA |