Groupe Country US originaire de Lubbock (Texas) et composé de de Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely et Butch Hancock.

The 1990 compilation of the Flatlanders' entire recorded history wasn't called More a Legend Than a Band for nothing. Although the Lubbock, TX-based group had the worst business luck this side of Badfinger and never did manage a full-fledged release of their unique take on traditional country music during their early-'70s existence, the three key members -- Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock -- went on to become three of Texas' most respected singer/songwriters.
Lubbock, a smallish college town in the middle of the cotton-growing flatlands of the West Texas panhandle, is both a fiercely traditional bastion of conservative values and, thanks to the surprisingly good liberal arts departments at Texas Tech University (and a relative lack of outside artistic influences), a place where creatively minded people can develop a unique and original style all their own. the Flatlanders embodied both sides of this dichotomy, which is what made their music so endlessly fascinating. The group began in 1970, when school friends Hancock, Ely, and Gilmore all found themselves back in Lubbock after having spent time in San Francisco, Europe, and Austin, respectively. The three musicians roomed together and began playing together as well, with various other local musicians drifting in and out of the lineup. Before long, the group's roster solidified with Gilmore on lead Vocals, Ely and Hancock on guitar, non-musician buddy Steve Wesson on autoharp and musical saw (both of which he learned for the express purpose of joining the group), Tommy Hancock (no relation) on fiddle, Sylvester Rice on upright bass, and Tony Pearson on mandolin.
The Flatlanders' manager, Lou Driver, met with another Lubbock boy, Royce Clark, a freelance producer who worked for Shelby Singleton (who at the time owned Sun Records). Far removed from its Sam Phillips glory days, Sun was at this time little more than a catalog which Singleton regularly plundered for his other labels, which included the bargain basement reissue label Share and the barely more mainstream Plantation Records, whose colorful logo was a fixture in the cheap bins at variety stores and truck stops throughout the South. Clark convinced Singleton to try the Lubbock boys out, and they arrived in Nashville in March 1972, where they recorded enough material for a full album. Singleton released a promo single of the group's strongest cut, "Dallas," in late April of that year. The single attracted absolutely no radio attention, and although the album had been mastered and artwork prepared, Singleton scrubbed the release.
In 1973, Jimmie Dale and the Flatlanders was just barely released -- on eight-track only. Although the tape showed up in the aforementioned Southern variety stores and truck stops, an eight-track release on a barely extant budget label with virtually no distribution is the next thing to no release at all. The group returned to Lubbock and played a few more gigs, but Wesson, Pearson, and Tommy Hancock all left the group by the end of 1972. The core trio played a few more gigs and drifted apart more than definitively breaking up.
Normally, that would have been that, but by the end of the '70s, Ely and Hancock were cult heroes, thanks to their respective solo albums, and Gilmore, who had written several songs for both of them but had retired from performing while he was studying with the Guru Maharaji, was one of the hippest names for Texas music fans to drop. In the mid-'80s, Gilmore returned to performing in his adopted hometown of Austin, and there was even a brief Flatlanders reunion at the Kerrville Folk Festival in the late '80s. In 1990, after a couple of partial reissues of the Flatlanders' material, Rounder Records released More a Legend Than a Band, which reissued the original Jimmie Dale and the Flatlanders album, replacing the covers of "Hello Stranger" and "Waiting for a Train" with four previously unreleased tracks that were recorded during the same sessions.
Almost ten years later, the group reunited to perform a track for The Horse Whisperer's soundtrack album. They enjoyed their reunion so much that they continued to perform together, recording a new album called Now Again and hitting the road for a well-received concert tour. The trio that spent 30 years between their first and second albums managed to reduce their downtime to a mere two years with the release of Wheels of Fortune in 2004; a rare concert recording from the early '70s, Live '72, also arrived that year. Five years later, the Flatlanders returned with another studio album, Hills and Valleys, which the band recorded with veteran pedal steel virtuoso (and acclaimed producer)

http://www.theflatlanders.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flatlanders

Style musical : Country-Folk, Progressive Country, Alt-Country, Americana, Alternative Country-Rock, Contemporary Country, Neo-Traditionalist Country, Outlaw Country

http://youtu.be/lcDxDgtZfr8

Years in activity :

DISCOGRAPHY

Single

Albums

10/1994	CD ROUNDER ROUCDSS 34 (US)		MORE A LEGEND THAN A BAND - Dallas / Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown / You've Never Seen Me Cry / She Had Everything / Rose From The Mountain / One Day At A Time / Jolé Blon / Down In My Hometown / Bhagavan Decreed / The Heart You Left Behind / Keeper Of The Mountain / Stars In My Life / One Road More
05/2002	CD NEW WEST NWCD 6040 (US)		NOW AGAIN - Going Away / Julia / Wavin' My Heart Goodbye / Down In The Light Of The Melon Moon / Right Where I Belong / My Wildest Dreams Grow Wilder Every Day / I Thought The Wreck Was Over / Yesterday Was Judgement Day / Now It's Now Again / All You Are Love / You Make It Look Easy / Pay The Alligator / Down On Filbert's Rise / South Wind Of Summer
01/2004	CD NEW WEST NWCD 6049 (US)		WHEELS OF FORTUNE - Baby Do You Love Me Still? / Wheels Of Fortune / Midnight Train / Wishin' For You / Eggs Of Your Chickens / I'm Gonna Strangle You Shorty / Back To My Old Molehill / Deep Eddy Blues / Neon Of Nashville / Once Followed By The Wind / Go To Sleep Alone / Indian Cowboy / Whistle Blues / See The Way
06/2004	CD NEW WEST NW 6052 (US)		LIVE AT THE ONE KNITE - AUSTIN TX - JUNE 8TH 1972 - The Stars In My Life / Honky Tonk Blues / San Francisco Bay Blues / Long Time Gone / Settin' The Woods On Fire / Love, Please Come Home / You've Never Seen Me Cry / Long Snake Moan / I Know You / Waitin' Around To Die / Hesitation Blues / Tecumseh Valley / Walkin' Down The Line / So I'll Run / Bring It On Home To Me / Jole Blon
03/2009	CD NEW WEST NW 6161 (US)		HILLS AND VALLEYS - Homeland Refugee / Borderless Love / After The Storm / Wishing For A Rainbow / No Way I'll Never Need You / Just About Time / Love's Own Chains / Cry For Freedom / The Way We Are / Thank God For The Road / Free The Wind / Sowing On The Mountain / There's Never Been
07/2012	CD NEW WEST NW50621 (US)		THE ODESSA TAPES - I Know You / Number Sixteen / Shadow Of The Moon / Dallas / Down In My Hometown / Stars In My Life / I Think Too Much Of You / Bhagavan Decreed / Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown / You ve Never Seen Me Cry / One Road More / Story Of You / Rose From The Mountain / The Heart You Left Behind
07/2021	CD Rack 'Em RERCD 0011 (US)		Treasure of Love - Moanin' Of The Midnight Train / Long Time Gone / Snowin' On Raton / She Smiles Like  River / Love Oh Love Please Come Home / Give My Love To Rose / Treasure Of Love / Satin Shoes / The Ballad Of Honest Sam / Mama Do The Kangaroo / She Belongs To Me / I Don't Blame You / Mobile Blues / Ramblin' Man / Sittin' On Top Of The World

© Rocky Productions 10/07/2021