THE FLATLANDERS

The Flatlanders--highly untutored in the ways of the music business-- were all but laughed out of Nashville on the one trip they made to Music City in 1971. The fledgling group traveled to Nashville with a demo tape that had been ineptly dubbed "upside down and backwards," according to Gilmore. He recalls hearing the tape hitting the sides of wastebaskets--clang!--as the group were ushered out of one Music Row office after another. Eventually, the band recorded for Shelby Singleton's Plantation Records, which released a few copies of a Flatlanders album on eight-track tape in 1972. In 1980, the tracks re-surfaced on England's Charly label as One Road More. Since 1990, the album has been available on Rounder Records as More A Legend Than A Band. The first sound that listeners heard of The Flatlanders on their one and only recorded effort was the mournful, high-lonesome voice of Jimmie Dale singing one of his own songs called "Dallas." The opening lines of that tune harbor what is still, perhaps, his most potent and poignant image: "Have you ever seen Dallas/From a DC-9 at night?" Another vocalist might use the line to convey anticipation, but Gilmore sings it with the melancholy echo of unredeemed dreams--the lights are only beautiful from a distance. In that song--and in many more in the years to come-Gilmore and his pals demonstrated their enviable ability to conjure up a world of emotion in a few simple words. After their disappointing Nashville sojourn, the band moved down to the Texas capital of Austin, which in 1973 was enjoying a musical renaissance fueled by an ornery combustion of country, rock and blues, and an explosion of original songwriting talent. The Flatlanders settled in at the Armadillo World Headquarters beer garden and played the Kerrville Folk Festival. But gradually, the tidal forces of the Austin scene and their own personal musical tastes pulled them apart and launched them on their respective solo careers.