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 on. He wrote his first song at the wheel of his father's tractor.

In 1971, Hancock along with his former school friends Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the folk-country lineup Flatlanders, who is considered the founder of the Alternative Country movement today.

Under his own name Hancock is known primarily 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 known primarily by the interpretations of Joe Ely. On Ely's first four albums a total of 13 songs from the pen of Hancock were. Among the other artists who covered songs by Butch Hancock, were Emmylou Harris, Jerry Jeff Walker, Rosie Flores, Linda Ronstadt and the Texas Tornados. The Austiner duo named Boxcars even after probably most covered song Hancocks.

As a solo artist Hancock remained a secret, which preserved his independence from the music industry. His albums he sold through his own record label Light Rain, where he sometimes even deliberately renounced the bar code, which meant that the major record stores and department store chains for technical reasons did not have his CDs in the program can take. Nevertheless, Hancock earned, whose nasal vocals at times reminiscent of Bob Dylan, in the course of time a loyal following, and his tours have taken him to Europe and Australia. In the late 1980s the bluegrass label Sugar Hill Records showed interest in Hancock and published two compilations of old material. In 1994 with Eats Away The Night - also at the Sugar Hill - the first time a Hancock album outside the Rainlight labels. In Germany the label Glitterhouse took over the distribution for the plate. Since 2000, Hancock also working together again with the Flatlanders.

Previously, Hancock had already taken care of in the scene for quite a stir: In a record-breaking series of six concerts in six successive evenings with more than two dozen musicians, he recorded 140 original songs, which he published under the title No Two Alike on multiple tapes. In 2010 he repeated this action - with a further 140 songs under the title No Two More Alike.

1998 Butch Hancock was incorporated into the Buddy Holly Walk of Fame in Lubbock.

Except as musicians operated the former marathon runner Hancock as a painter, draftsman, photographer, designer, gallery owner and director of rafting trips. Butch Hancock lives in Austin, Texas.

Discography

Albums

• West Texas Waltzes and Dust - Blown Tractor Tunes ( Rain Light 1978)
• The Wind 's Dominion ( Rain Light 1979)
• Diamond Hill ( Rain Light 1980)
• 1981: A Spare Odyssey ( Rain Light 1981)
• Firewater ... Seeks Its Own Level ( Rain Light 1981)
• Yella Rose ( with Marce Lacouture ) ( Rain Light 1985)
• Split & Slide II ( Rain Light 1986)
• Cause of the Cactus ( with Marce Lacouture ) ( Rain Light 1987)
• No Two Alike (14 cassettes) ( Rain Light 1990)
• Two Roads - Live in Australia ( with Jimmie Dale Gilmore ) (Virgin, 1990)
• Eats Away the Night ( Sugar Hill 1994 / Glitterhouse 1994)
• Songs From Chippy - Diary of a West Texas Hooker ( with Joe Ely and others) ( Hollywood Records 1994)
• You Coulda Walked Around the World ( Rain Light 1997)
• War and Peace ( Two Roads 2007)

Compilations

• Own & Own ( Sugar Hill 1989)
• Own the Way Over Here ( Sugar Hill 1993)