Terry Allen: C/D, S/D

It's a fine album with help from Lucinda Williams and David Byrne, but in good ways.

Haven't seen his art, though.

his art is pretty cool, actually. i had a design professor who rather unexpectedly was a big terry allen fan (as in terry allen's art).

musicians who are also (or primarily) professional artists s/d??

Revive.

Terry Allen is a perfect example of why you should never stop digging. Jaurez completely blew my mind when i first heard it about four years back; i mean, how did i walk the earth for so long not knowing about this guy (same thing happen recently with the Sir Douglas Quintet). Not that Allen's super-incredible or anything; it's that something this gratifying took this long to discover (and why do so few include him in the canon?). I've since collected the majority of his catalog and consider him an essential artist.

I've come to see Allen as the guy who grabbed the mantle just as Waylon Jennings started to slide (after 1975's Dreaming My Dreams). His sound comes out of the outlaw tradition but the content is decidedly more esoteric and worldly.

Lubbock (On Everything) is the album i continually return to; his talent for storytelling may take the most literal path possible, but his anecdotes are laden with an honesty and humor that is both abundant and good-natured.

A recent clip of Terry doing the lead track off 1979's Lubbock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGxPhx0yrf0

New album is out; very good stuff.

http://www.silverdisc.com/images/634_634/634457577220.jpg

Wow, he's still around.

This is great news!

not sure what took me so long, but finally listened to lubbock (on everything) a couple weeks back and now its all i can listen to. really agree with the post upthread wrt him taking the mantle from Waylon.

the album is just so damn solid, like old no. 1 and honky tonk heroes are amazing and all, and i prefer them to it (though maybe that will change), but neither of them ever kept my attention as long as this.

reissued on Paradise of Bachelors

http://www.paradiseofbachelors.com/terry-allens-juarez-out-today-terry-allen-tamale-t-shirts-sale-other-news/

https://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/terry-allen-pedal-steal-four-corners

riveting and hilarious

thank you for this !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc4s6Q6XGVs

if they ever succeed in re-booting "king of the hill", perhaps they could get terry to stand in for tom petty in the role of Lucky

Yeah, Lubbock (On Everything) really is incredible. Just the mind that can come up with the little art truck fire suite, endearing character sketches and something as damn fire as "New Delhi Freight Train", all on the same damn album, is absolutely mind-blowing.

Thanks to ILM chatter about this album, I've got the 2CD version on its way to me. Definitely hits a sweet spot.

It walks such a perfect line of empathizing and mocking the characters. I mean :

Ahh, she was a honky tonker
An′ he was a family man
An' she showed him her gold teeth
When he′d hold her little hand
An' they met out on the highway
At the Paradise Motel Lounge
On Saturday nights when things weren't right
Between him an his wife in town
An′ they′re just another couple
On a Highplains Jamboree
Playing out them sad songs they understand
Yeah, just another couple
Makin' jukebox memories
An′ walking into trouble hand in hand
Well she weren't no maid of cotton
An′ he weren't no hell-of-a-man
But they must have loved each other
Like only the lonely can
′Cause they slow-danced through the neons
Like sorrow through a song
Then they carried the tune to the motel room
An' they played it all night long
An' they′re just another couple
On a Highplains Jamboree
Playing out them sad songs they understand
Yeah, just another couple
Makin′ jukebox memories
An' walking into trouble hand in hand
I said walking into trouble hand in hand

Don't recall this threat atall--blog comments re 2022:

RELATED REISSUES/PREV. UNRELEASED*
Like a too-hip tomcat, Terry Allen yowls all over the first four tracks of Smokin The Dummy, but even there and certainly the rest his yes *rollicking* piano leads the Mystery Panhandle Band, who include at times Joe Ely on harmonica, Jesse Taylor on guitar, and maybe all of The Maines Brothers Band and then some, Incl. eight-year-old Natalie M. on Bloodlines, where not even Allen’s voice is ever a prob and 70s x TX-fried ice cream is thus even more of a sufficiently nutritious reality every day as well as night, apparently (so kids too yeah

Yeah, Lubbock (On Everything) really is incredible. Just the mind that can come up with the little art truck fire suite, endearing character sketches and something as damn fire as "New Delhi Freight Train", all on the same damn album, is absolutely mind-blowing.

― better than ezra collective soul asylum (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, August 20, 2025 10:41 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Did you see he's playing Old Town with Kurt Vile?

I flipped over Lubbock and searched out more of his stuff but for the most part it was just fine. Good collections of songs, but nothing that gets close to that one.

I must have told this story before. Maybe 7 years ago I drove to Lubbock from Houston to see Allen and the original Panhandle Mystery Band play Lubbock (On Everything) at a nice theater. Jo Harvey Allen introduced each side of the album with a story, my favorite of which was about their high school days and driving out to a field at night with friends . They would park their cars in a circle facing inwards and dance in the headlights to Wolfman Jack’s program. One of the best shows I’ve seen, it was perfect.

FYI the common CD that was around trims a few of the songs and cuts one entirely. The newer version from Paradise of Bachelors matches the original vinyl tracks and times. The cut song isn’t anything special but I like the longer intros/outros.

xp - I did! unfortunately waiting on confirmation on whether I'll be out of town those nights or not yet for a family thing and, given the looks of things, it'll be sold out before I know.