About
The Flatlanders first came together in Lubbock, Texas, a college town in the West Texas panhandle. Lubbock in the early '70s was at once a fiercely traditional bastion of conservative values and a place where creatively minded people could develop a unique and original style all their own, largely thanks to the celebrated liberal arts departments at Texas Tech University. The Flatlanders embodied both sides of this dichotomy, making music that was steeped in tradition but also a reflection of the "cosmic cowboy" mindset of the Texas counterculture. The group began in 1970, when school friends Butch Hancock, Joe Ely, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore all found themselves back in Lubbock after having spent time in, respectively, San Francisco, Europe, and Austin. The three musicians roomed together and began writing and playing music, 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 band had only a handful of gigs before they cut an album-length demo tape at a little studio in Odessa, Texas, in 1972, but nothing came of it, and it sat unheard in Rice's closet for some 40 years before New West Records released it as The Odessa Tapes in 2012.
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