Search - Butch Hancock :: You Coulda Walked Around the World

An obscure masterpiece

09/11/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I find myself putting on this CD when I have insomnia. I figure if I can't sleep, I might as well savor some great music. Even in Texas, this small-label CD is hard to find at a music store. It's the least commercial Butch Hancock I've heard, and that's quite a feat for someone few people have heard of. It's also his most introspective. It's just a man and his guitar in Terlingua, singing about barefoot prints on the desert sand, chasing God and leaving your car behind for a little walk around the planet. Butch's relentless word-play is in fine form but less manic than usual (Butch is the only songwriter I know with the audacity to rhyme surgery with purgery.) After a long career based on sheer exuberance and imagination, Butch Hancock has revealed another side of himself - a philosopher, a craftsman and a damned fine poet."

Top-Shelf Texas Songwriter (& Well-Kept Secret...By His Choi

traveling wilbury | Asheville, NC | 01/04/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Relatively unknown in the U.S. outside Texas, singer-songwriter Butch Hancock is one of the best-kept secrets of our time (by his choice). He is better known in Europe and Australia than his native country. Many of his songs have been recorded by Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and he's one-third of The Flatlanders.



'You Coulda Walked Around The World' (and his 'War and Peace'), are essential stuff. For me, each song stands alone as a masterpiece. And each include his original artwork and photography.



Start with this one or his earlier classics....the music is timeless."

Stan Laurel meets Socrates

Jon Stern | Wembley, Middlesex United Kingdom | 05/06/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It was a shock hearing this album at first. Even by Butch's normal low-fi production standards this album's single guitar and vocals sound is really stripped down to the bone. Repeated listenings pay dividends though and this is another fine collection of songs with Butch sounding ever-happy with his own low-key way of doing things.The albums opener, "Chase" and the closing title track are my particular favourites in an album that conjures up impressions of Butch's quiet part of Texas.The photo on the album's back cover shows Butch standing beside statues of Stan Laurel and Socrates, and its strikes me that half way between these two greats may be as close as it is possible to get to describing Butch and his wonderful music."