Terry Allen - Lubbock (On Everything) 2xLP

Label: Paradise Of Bachelors

Our Review:

Lubbock (On Everything) is a sprawling double album from 1979 of some of the best alt-country-folk Texas had to offer. Recorded by Lloyd Manes who also plays pedal steel with a full-on backing band of Joe Ely and The Flatlanders, this is considered Terry Allen's masterpiece. Here he sets his eagle-eyed observations on the peculiarities of life in Lubbock, a small north Texas town that despite its remoteness, was home to a highly creative clan of artists, musicians and eccentrics. A key influence for the album and movie version of The Talking Heads' True Stories (David Byrne contributes liner notes to this reissue as well as Allen's wife), and the artist Jo Harvey Allen who played "The Lying Woman" in that film also sings harmony here. Over 21 tracks, Allen sets his dry lyrical wit on the art world, art collectors, threesomes, wolfmen and waitresses, and he contributes some of his most well-known songs such as "Amarillo Highway" and "New Delhi Freight Train," which was recorded by Little Feat two years earlier. The Flatlanders' able-backing provides the perfect musical atmosphere for the nuanced poignancy of Allen's gifted songwriting. Such a great record that we can't recommend enough. Plus, it's been remastered from the original analogue tapes, correcting pitch/tape speed inconsistencies evident on all prior versions.