The Flatlanders

Artist’s Website

Texas music legends Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock first formed The Flatlanders in 1972 only to be completely rejected by the country music establishment. The group eventually split up after they recorded an album in Nashville that was not released (it was eventually released on Rounder in 1990 as More a Legend Than a Band). All three went on to successful solo careers, and initially reunited as The Flatlanders in 1998 to do a one-off recording for the soundtrack of The Horse Whisperer. The reunion was so much fun, the trio regrouped and cut an entire album – Now Again (New West 2002), which spent 17 weeks at #1 on the Americana charts and 21 weeks on the Billboard Country charts. The supergroup is now back with a fourth release in a rather elongated string of albums, “Hills and Valleys.” Despite the trio’s tendency to ‘be as likely to spend hours trading tales and laughing uproariously as they would trying to agree on a lyric,’ the band still managed to come up with eight eloquent joint efforts, they added Ely’s ‘Love’s Own Chains’ and ‘There’s Never Been,’ Hancock’s ‘Thank God For The Road,’ one by Gilmore’s son, Colin (‘The Way We Are’), and, for good measure, their arrangement of Woody Guthrie’s ‘Sowing on the Mountain.’ That one serves not only as an homage to one of their musical guideposts but, as Hancock notes, a representation of the album’s general theme: ‘the ups and downs, emotionally, of peoples’ lives these days.’

As with each Flatlanders album or tour, no one knows about a next one; they’re a product of fate, chance, inspiration, the gods … and come around when they come around. They’ve each got successful solo careers to keep up as well. But here they are, 37 years after they were prodded into recording together the first time, still collaborating – and still the best of friends. In his soft Texas drawl, Ely sums the philosophy behind their creativity: ‘We might as well write music and make songs up, because there’s not anything that we’d rather be doing.’