Butch Hancock

Butch Hancock (press photo)

Butch Hancock (press photo)

Butch Hancock is a Texas music legend, “among the finest songwriters of our time,” says his biography on his Web site. His songs have been covered by many artists, not least of which is Emmylou Harris.

Starting his career as a Texas Tech University student working for his dad on a Lubbock cotton farm, his inspiration for his first batch of songs came from the sights and sounds of those kinds of lifestyles. In 1972, he formed The Flatlanders with his old high school friends. It wasn’t until 1978 that he released his own solo record, West Texas Waltzes and Dust-Blown Tractor Tunes.

His career has been what some would call “renegade,” where Hancock was not amenable to writing music to satisfy the marketing direction of country music, but instead, he writes about his observations and experiences.

Hancock moved to Austin in the 1970s, but later found solace on acreage near Terlingua in the Texas Big Bend country. Today, he shares his time between his Terlingua ranch and his other home in Wimberley, Texas. ‘The schools are better there for my kid,” he says.

In this podcast, Hancock talks about Terlingua, the Texas music mystique, and laughs about being called a “philosopher/poet.”