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"Terry's finally gettin' me in over my head," read the note from Butch Hancock on the postcard that arrived late last week, forwarded from the old Poulsbo address. The card was an announcement of an exhibit of Hancock's artwork, curated by his longtime West Texas compadre Terry Allen, showing at the Cue Art Foundation in New York City.

Unfortunately the forwarding-delay caused the card to arrive on the very day (0ctober 18) of the exhibit's opening gala, which included a performance by Hancock and Allen; elsewise I'd have posted this in time to inform any NYC-ers who might be reading. Still, however, the exhibit continues through December 1, so there's still time to check out the visual art, if not the live music, of one of the 20th's century's great songwriters.

Except he doesn't really think of himself as a songwriter, which partly explains the existence of this exhibit. Digging back through my files to an old Butch Hancock feature story I wrote for the late, great Rocket biweekly in Seattle (when Grant was managing editor there), I came across a quote from Butch which I remembered well, as it has stayed with me through the years as a guidepost for my own understanding and perspective of artistry.

“I just look at it as all one whole thing that’s completely related,” Hancock answered when asked about the various ways his art manifests itself. “My drawings and my photos are completely intertwined, at least in my brain, with my songs. I don't look at myself as a songwriter, or as a musician, or as a photographer; those are just part of what I do. And if I’m a tractor driver one year, then I’m a tractor driver, but that’s just part of what I do.”

As I write this, playing in repeat-mode on the stereo is "Already Gone", one of Hancock's great extended epics, clocking in just shy of eight minutes. It appeared in the early '90s on Two Roads: Live In Australia, a duo release with Jimmie Dale Gilmore; but the version I'm listening to right now is newly recorded by the Philadelphia band John Train (formerly of the late great Philly indie label Record Cellar). It's on their new disc Mesopotamia Blues, which is dedicated to Hancock and Peter Case, and also includes a cover of a Terry Allen song, as it happens. The liner notes contain the following rumination from singer John Houlon about "Already Gone":

"When I first heard this tune, I was blown away. Still am. It is, I think, the best song that anyone wrote during and about the Reagan years. 'Already Gone' is a protest song and a love song. Of course, Butch says that all of his songs are protest songs ... even the love songs."

Sure sounds like something Butch would say, all right.

adios,
peter

Posted by peter on October 23, 2007 3:08 PM | Permalink