Lubbock on Everything

Lubbock, TX. Buddy Holly. Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Joe Ely.

And then there's Terry Allen.

Terry is a conceptual multimedia country artist, if there is such a thing. Born in Kansas, bred in Lubbock, educated in L.A., and now in Santa Fe, Terry writes wry lyrics about art, good ole boys, pillpopping and the Nashville country establishment, among other things. And he's a sculptor. I actually got the chance to meet and talk with him when I was getting my mfa in New Orleans in 1997. Nice enough guy, very unassuming. At the time, I was undergoing a small existential conflict about Art, so when I heard this song on a wonderful country show on WWOZ, It really hit a nerve:

Well I give up all my sculpturing
'Cause my life had gone all sad
An I went to work down at the factory
It weren't art...but it weren't bad
So They put me on the assembly line
Puttin plastic leaves on the plastic palms
Then they shipped them off the Los Angeles
Yeah it weren't art...but it weren't wrong
Now some say it's pathetic
When you give up your aesthetic
For a blue collar job in the factory
But all that exhibiting
Was just too damn inhibiting
For a beer drinking
Regular guy...like me

This double album was recorded in Lubbock in 1979, with the participation of folks like Joe Ely and Lloyd maines. To be more precise:

Engineered & Mastered by DON CALDWELL & LLOYD MAINES
Produced by: everyone on this record

Musicians
Piano & Vocal/Terry Allen
Pedal steel, acoustic & electric guitars, dobro, mandolin,
tenor banjo, bell tree/Lloyd Maines
Bass/Kenny Maines
Drums/Curtis McBride
Percussion, marimba, jawbone, skin castanets/Alan Shinn
Fiddle/Richard Bowden
Accordian/Ponty Bone
Saxophone/Don Caldwell
Harmonica/Joe Ely (courtesy MCA Records)
Jazz Guitar on "Cocktails for Three"/Luis Martinez
Flatland guitar on "Flatland Farmer"/Jesse Taylor
Trumpet/Tommy Anderson
Trombone/Mark Anthony
Tuba/Russ Standefer
Strings/Ruth Ann Truncale (violin), Susan Allen (viola), Karen Blalack (cello),
Leslie Blackburn (viola)
String arrangements/Don Caldwell
School song/Monterey High School Marching Band
Harmony/Lloyd Maines, Kenny Maines, Sylvester "band-aid" Rice, Gwen Hewitt, Suzanne Paulk, Jo Harvey Allen
"Whooooit" Harmony/Freddy Pride, Mike Austin, Vincent Thomas, Jimmy Sampson

LUBBOCK ON EVERYTHING:

1 Amarillo Highway
2 High Plains Jamboree
3 Great Joe Bob (A Regional Tragedy)
4 The Wolfman of del Rio
5 Lubbock Woman
6 The Girl Who Danced Oklahoma
7 Truckload of Art
8 Collector (And the Art Mob)
9 Oui (A French Song)
10 Rendevouz USA
11 Cocktails for Three
12 The Beautiful Waitress
13 Blue Asian Reds
14 New Delhi Freight Train
15 Ffa
16 Flatland Farmer
17 My Amigo
18 The Pink and Black Song
19 The Thrity Years Waltz
20 I Just Left Myself

NOTE: tracks in compressed file are out of order. Reorganize at will!!