Jimmie Dale Gilmore & Butch Hancock

The Flatlanders were so ahead of their time that the trio—songwriters Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock—waited 30 years before making a follow-up. In the early ‘70s, the lifelong pals from Lubbock cut a set of demos with Buddy Holly’s dad, but they were soon lost. Their actual debut, 1973’s All American Music, essentially suffered the same fate, issued in an ultra-limited run of eight-track cassettes to skirt contractual snafus. But as Gilmore, Hancock, and Ely earned modest success with solo careers as early architects of alternative country, whispers of The Flatlanders’ bygone greatness spread. Their second act has now lasted for two decades, a dual ode to how prescient they were and how powerful they remain as singers and songwriters.

Indeed, Gilmore and Hancock remain two indispensable country poets and singers, capable of cramming a half-dozen classic puns or metaphors or quips into a single song. Though the image-rich “Dallas” has remained Gilmore’s calling card, even recorded by Ely several times, he is a laser-sharp bard of lost-love songs, perfectly articulating how worthless a little hurt can make you feel. (And, yes, that’s Gilmore in The Big Lebowski.) Even as The Flatlanders have returned to record labels and a renewed legacy, Hancock has remained defiantly independent, running his own imprint and decamping to very rural Texas. These two Flatlanders reconvene at the edge of Appalachia, reminding us of the slow path music can take to recognize those who forever changed it.