Butch Hancock doesn't care if you read this or if this article about him gets published. He's no egotist or nihilist. He just inhabits his own comfort zone as a great songwriter/renaissance man who enjoys what he does though he doesn't care if it stops. For someone who likes to chronicle such a perennial outsider, that's pretty frustrating. Why make the trouble for someone who doesn't do himself many favours? "Everything is perfect" he opinions to me after an hour-long talk about his career. "In its own way," I reply, wondering how he falls into that scheme.

Isn't it the same for other songsmiths whose creations loom larger in history than they ever can? Doc Pomus, Willie Dixon, Otis Blackwell all made their mark on popular music but who except biz people or music nuts know them as well as the artists who made us sing their songs? Similarly, you've probably heard Hancock's songs come out of the mouths of the Texas Tornadoes and Emmylou Harris as well as his old (and better-known) Lubbock home-boys Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Joe Ely, both of whom have long championed his work.

The small Texas town where Hancock, Gilmore and Ely grew up bound them together and set them off on a musical path as the Flatlanders. Strangely enough, the same thing that drove most people out of the area is the same thing that fascinated Butch. Lubbock is indeed flatland and isolated at that with vast skies and endless horizon. This is where he drove a tractor and learned that second gear, third throttle was the key of G, and soon the songs were coming out.

Though he started out as an architecture student in the '60's, Butch knew that college and the 9-5 grind weren't for him so he followed his muse into the honky-tonks and goat-roasts where it seemed that everyone and his dog had a guitar by their side. Buckminster Fuller and Frank Lloyd Wright would always remain influential in his life but his new heroes were musical poets. Armed with 6-strings, long hair and a disdain for Nashville top-40 gunk assured him of his status as an outcast at the time.

Half of Butch's roots lied in the ebb-and-flow of country in what fellow Texan Townes Van Zandt called "the blues and zippidy-do-dah" where the latter was in favour when the '70's, and the Flatlanders, began. 'Countrypolitan' music was adding a professional shine and making pulpy, mass-produced fast-food for the masses. It was worlds away from the Bakersfield sound (laid out by Merle Haggard and Buck Owens) that came up before it and made drums and electric guitars a part of the music while Gram Parsons was still teething. This raw music sprung up from the vine that gave forth the fruit of the constantly revived honky-tonk music of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell that traditionalists and neo-traditionalists fall over to show how authentic they are. Their spiritual father was the great Jimmie Rodgers, a railroad man whose tuberculosis-filled lungs yodelled out the blues in the '30's.

Rodgers himself got the bug for music from the vaudeville and its Tin Pan Alley songs. Though the Brill Building years later took up the tradition of institutional songwriting, everything changed once the British Invasion made it unhip to get your tunes from an outside writer. This shift was also hastened by Dylan's ascendancy (and thanks to good management and publishing deals) as a path was laid out where singers saw the benefits of scribbling their own tunes. Dylan's rep went through the roof thanks not just to his own talent but also because Peter, Paul and Mary and the Byrds proved that he had a golden touch with his material.

An unfortunate and inevitable offshoot of this came when singers were writing their own sensitive, whiney songs about their navel-gazing selves and thus was the singer-songwriter movement was born. Interestingly, country happened to be way ahead of this curve. Everyone from Jimmie Rodgers to Hank Williams to Merle Haggard to Johnny Cash to Dolly Parton were writing their own material before rock decided that it was important for artists to take care of their own tunes. Such was the climate that allowed nurturing talent like Jimmie, Joe and Butch to follow their respective muses.

Sadly, this kind of atmosphere also meant that there was no place in the industry for a schmaltz-free country-rock group like the Flatlanders. A one-sided single and an eight-track tape was all that came of it until 1990 when Rounder issued the appropriately titled More A Legend Than A Band. Along with Jimmie's quavering wail, Butch was making his mark with songs filled with existential struggle and longing that would mark all of his work. Witness "Stars In My Life"- who but an architecture student could connect atomic physics with romantic stability?

This universe collapses on occasion
But the stars in my life will stay in place

Also irresistible was his existential rambling anthem, "One More Road":

At the end of this road they say
There's always an open door
And I guess my bare feet'll have to carry me one road more

While history would take about two decades or so to catch up with them, the Flatlanders dispersed. Jimmie went to Denver to study with a guru, Joe rambled around for a while and Butch settled in a small town to build an amphitheatre and do some "interior travelling." Consider what a confusing time it was for country music in the early-mid '70's: Olivia Newton-John, John Denver, CB radios and Hee Haw with the cartoonish Outlaw movement and Dukes of Hazzard yet to come.

In the midst of this embarrassment, Joe returned to Lubbock in '74 to start up a rockin' new band for himself and was soon rewarded with a major label contract. His first few records paired off his own songs with a healthy dose of Butch's work- classics like "If You Were a Bluebird" (later covered by Emmylou Harris) "She Never Spoke Spanish to Me" (later done by Texas Tornadoes), "Fools Fall in Love" and especially the glorious "West Texas Waltz."

Well my pick-up needs a tune-up
I better get up and make up
My mind to get busy today
And sewer line's been backing up
And my tractor's been acting up
But I'll be dancing tonight away

All good and well that Joe's solo career started with a bang but it was a mixed blessing to Butch's career. For some of the lucky folks, one songwriter tradition is to have others make your songs into hits and help launch your career. Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman and Carole King all had made their own records around the same time in the '70's thanks in large part to others taking an interest in their songs. The reason that Butch didn't get caught up in this singer-songwriter craze is that he decided to take his own route.

He decided to go indie and make music on his own Rainlight label, learning the basics of the business on a modest scale. That meant everything from picking up boxes of his albums at a record plant to driving around to stores to sell them. " If I had been doing it for a big record company, instantly you've lost touch with what goes on," he reasons.

In the same way, he savoured playing small clubs though that again wouldn't help get the word out about his work on a big-time scale. Not that he cared… "You try the songs out and they fly or they don't. You get one-on-one feedback. I realised 'I've got the best seat in the house, right up here on stage.' I thought 'Hey, I'm not really the show here. Just look at all these crazy lives being lived out here in the honky-tonks.'" No doubt that such observations were fertile ground for making songs.

Last year, Butch reissued his early Rainlight albums on CD: West Texas Waltzes & Dust-Blow (1978), Wind's Dominion (1979), Diamond Hill (1980) and Firewater... Seeks Its Own Level (1981), Yella Rose with Marce Lacoutre (1985). West Texas, his debut, is a solo affair with only acoustic guitar, harmonica and Butch's appropriate Dylan-tinged voice. Barren farms, tough dirt roads, high planes, far-away power lines, thunderstorms all evoke the dangers of the wide-open spaces but there's still good times to be had as his remake of the title-track attests. Dominion has him working with a small band for a more varied set of material. The title track (where science and religion butt heads in a class war) and the breathless rambling tale "Own & Own" and the scrappy metaphysics of "Gift Horse of Mercy" and " Capture...Fracture...And The Rapture" are some of his finest creations. Diamond Hill shows his sentimental side with a touch too many horns as in "Ghost Of Give And Take Avenue" and "Golden Haired Ways." The live Firewater is probably the best of his early records and an excellent overview with the great shout-a-long title track ('life is a cyclone/death is a breeze'), covers of his own "Bluebird" (done with Jimmie Dale) and "One More Road" and the Carter Family's "No Hiding Place." Yella Rose is Butch with a band in a sentimental mode again with highlights such as the pretty title track (he ALWAYS has good title tracks!) and "Only Makes Me Love You More" and "Like A Kiss on the Mouth." A good crash-course in the Rainlight albums can be found on Sugar Hill's well-selected Own & Own compilation from '91.

As luck would have it, around the same time that Butch took a break from Rainlight, Jimmie Dale got the bug to start up again his career again in the late '80's. His first solo records featured Butch songs like the lovely, cosmic "Just A Wave, Not The Water," "When The Nights Are Cold," "Red Chevrolet" ("You don't know how I cried/When you went away/Now I miss you and your Red Chevrolet") and one of his finest songs "My Mind's Got A Mind Of Its Own."

My mind's got a mind of its own
Takes me out a-walkin'
When I'd rather stay at home
Takes me out to parties
When I'd rather be alone

By the late '80's, the neo-trad gravy train came back to country music as Randy Travis helped to (temporarily) put an end to the cross-over pop/pap nonsense. With Garth Brooks mega-stardom and the No Depression alt-country movement taking root in the '90's, the field was ripe for a talent like Butch's to gain some long-overdue recognition outside of Texas. Indeed, after he decided that label-management was cutting into his writing and performing time, he hooked up with the quality bluegrass label Sugar Hill.

His first effort for Sugar Hill, 1993's Own the Way Over Here, had a little too much production polish to it with Butch sounding most at home on low-key numbers like "Already Gone" and "Away From the Fountain" as well as a nice Tom Lehrer political satire "Talkin' About the Panama Canal." Butch then came out with what is probably his strongest album ever in 1995, Eats the Night Away (ooh, how he loves those title puns) helmed by Lucinda Williams producer Gurf Morlix. Though it's a band record like Own the Way, the production is wisely not overdone this time. Along with versions of "Bluebird" and "Boxcars" that top Ely's, Butch unleashes "Junkyard in the Sun" ("for every graveyard in the moonlight/there's a junkyard in the sun") and the wonderful rockabilly of "Baby Be Mine."

I ain't gonna let nobody humble me
And I ain't gonna bumble like a bumble bee
I ain't a gonna stumble
Ain't gonna step outta line

"OK, blah, blah, blah- another singer-songwriter who didn't get his due," you say. First, I should smack you for such insolent blather but then I'd tell you that Butch isn't just a fantastic song-scribbler. He's a picture-snapping, cable-show-making, rafting wonder. His photos come from his tour travels (including a Soviet exhibit in 1987 culled from a tour there) and have adorned his own Lubbock or Leave It gallery as well as his own album sleeves. Own & Own for instance has Butch with a camera reflected in a car side-mirror, a flood, a tornado and an elephant by the train tracks. Of his photography, Butch sees it as "just out on the street, observing. Which is kind of where my songwriting comes from. You observe stuff, take it in and develop it."

In addition, his local cable show, Dixie's Bar and Bus Stop, taped about 160 shows in the mid-'80's, chronicling all kinds of local talent from Townes Van Zandt to Lonnie Mack to Marcia Ball and even producing local commercials for the show. He's also worked for Far Flung Travels rafting trips in the Rio Grande for about a decade now, where he paddles and performs: "It's the best gig on the planet. You boat in the daytime through incredible country. Then (you're) sitting around, playing music around the campfire, under the stars."

The '90's also signalled a number of ambitious projects for Butch. No Two Alike, from 1990, was a week-long series of concerts in Austin. Most impressive was the fact that the whole set/release including 140 songs that he performed without repeating one- if that's not stamina and breadth, what the hell is? In '96, he released an epic fourteen-cassette collection to chronicle the whole event. This led to "The 30 Days of February Song Mural Project" which made outdoor artwork bloom all over Austin. To support this, he embarked on a month-long stint where played at different clubs in Austin each night including a Dylan night, a train song night, an animal song night, hospital gigs, house parties and a Valentine Day's broadcast. Though he wasn't able to realise the town-wide mural project as he liked, Butch sure as hell did his bit for urban renewal.

If that wasn't enough (sure as hell would tire me out), Butch has also indulged in a number of side projects with his comrades. 1992 saw the release of a fun live album he did with Jimmie Dale in Australia, Two Roads with two of Butch's songs reprised on Jimmie's recent One Endless Night including the especially fine "Rambin' Man":

Well, I'm your rambling man
And I could lift your latch
Well I could stay here mama
But I got me some trains to catch

Two years later, Butch contributed a few sad and beautiful numbers to Chippy, a theatre piece about a Texas hooker by Ely and another great Lubbock singer-songsmith-artist, Terry Allen. Butch still found time that year to make a guest appearance on Bloomed from No Depression hero Richard Bucker.

Then, just to bring history full-circle a bit, in addition to re-releasing his early records on Rainlight last year, Butch also came out with You Coulda Walked Around The World, a strong acoustic, solo return to his own imprint. Some of the highlights are "Chase"(where you hunt the wind, stars, cats, cars, your tail, your hat, this, that) "Barefoot Prints" (a love song with Aunt Jemima and the Three Stooges!) and "Roll Around" (from Chippy). Butch was so delighted with the end result that he's talked about doing the whole album over again with a band and releasing it with the acoustic version.

One more piece of history that came around for Butch was the Flatlanders themselves. Early this year, they undertook a three-week tour, ending up in New York for a sold-out two-night stand at the Bottom Line this March. No doubt, this was the highest profile he'd had in a while outside of Texas thanks to the company he was keeping. Even though they had shown up at each other's gigs again and again, this was the first time since the early '70's that they headlined together as the Flatlanders. Sure enough, they evoked the old-timey, folky acoustic ease of their original group with plenty of honky-tonk, sing-a-longs, yodelling and stories to set up songs. The three old friends traded verses with an easy, rolling feel, giving Butch a lot of room to stretch his pipes. Seeing them together, the distinct personalities come out right away: Jimmie the scrawny spiritualist with the wavering voice, Joe the handsome rocker and Butch the content comparatively-reserved singer-songwriter.

After the tour, Butch returned to his new hometown of Terlingua (population: 25), a remote Rio Grande ghost-town of arty types in the midst of natural wonders like canyons, desert, national parks, mountain trails, Indian camps, old mines and a state-wide Chilli Cook-Off. Lubbock It or Leave It owner Barbara Roseman explains why Butch had to leave the big city: "Austin had great demands on his time- everyone ran their ideas by him because of his reputation." And what are his ambitions and goals today? New album? Tour plans? Art project? Nope. "I'm going to be working on a house out in the desert. If you think any of my songs are slightly off the beaten path, wait 'til you see the buildings I build!" Such are Butch's ultimate ambitions now.

As a singer/songwriter/photographer/producer, it's been said that Butch isn't as well-known outside of Texas as his peers because he scatters his talents. He himself doesn't see it that way at all. In fact, he sees all of his wide-ranging pursuits as complementary. "They all kind of feed each other. There's times where one has more of a vibe to it so you follow that. In the down-times, it's good to have other things to be working on in a creative way while you're doing a re-charge on another activity."

Which is fair enough but what about the fact that he himself doesn't think that he is not the household name he should be? That's just the way Butch is and a fan like yours truly be damned. He's found his own peace with himself and that's all he could care about. Playing the biz game isn't part of his life. Whereupon he lets forth with the most anti-careerist thing I've ever heard from someone in the music business. "I don't really care if I write another song. I never have. I suspect I will though. But if I don't, I have no disappointments whatsoever. (laughs) I've done a fair amount of songwriting and this and that but I don't want to depend on that for my minute-by-minute feelings about myself." Mind you, this is a guy who's been at it for thirty-years-plus.

And you know what? Maybe he's got it right and most everyone else is ass-backwards. What does he care that his songs were more well-known before he himself was or that he can't match the rep of the performers who did them (including his old friends)? Why bother? Much as I admire Jimmie and Joe, Butch is a true inspiration to me and that's why I wanted to sing his praises. I champion musical underdogs constantly and sometimes wonder whether all the hard work is worth it. Butch would probably say that it may not be. But you do what you feel you have to do and when you can't and don't want to, that's when it's time to hang up your shingle. Maybe I will one day. Maybe Butch will one day. Maybe that should be written into any recording or ASCAP contract. Even more than the wonderful, transcendent songs he's crafted, that could turn out to be Butch's greatest contribution to mankind.

View Butch Hancock's catalogue at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

View The Flatlanders' catalogue at Amazon.com

View Jimmie Dale Gilmore's catalogue at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk