Butch Hancock - War & Peace

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Music reviews of War & Peace

Music Review: All arounf good album
Rating: 5 Stars

Description of War & Peace

Butch Hancock's self-produced "War and Peace", his first solo CD in almost 9 years, meets face to face with the mountains of lies that appear to be rising higher and higher all around us and all inside us, and reminds us: the times they are STILL a'changin'.

From the riveting acapella opener, a call-for-peace/prayer/warning/urge-to-compassion, to the final cut, a 7-minute plus get-out-the-vote anthem which would set Woody Guthrie, Willie Dixon and Mississippi John Hurt dancing proudly in their graves, Hancock, the impeccable lyricist, pulls no metaphorical punches as he questions all kinds of authority: overt, covert, exterior, interior, imagined, and unimagined.

His voice, still warm and scratchy after all these years, blends with his own harmonies and those of his long time running buddies, Fellow Flatlanders Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, who join Butch with harmonies on "The Master Game" and "Cast the Devils Out". Butch's new melodies are as memorable as the Guthrie-ish "borrowings" of melodies on "Cast the Devils Out" and "Great Election Day", and on "Toast" he echoes the dreamlike would-be spiritual perceptions we could all lay claim to on any given late-night drinking occasion. What's more, it's done to the accompaniment of old timey banjo and cathedral organ! Of the relentlessly rocking "Old Man, Old Man," Austin guitarist Charlie Sexton was heard to exclaim, "Man, that's so 60's ...it's like ...The Doors! I love it!" Billy Joe Shaver's favorite is "When the Good and the Bad Get Ugly," and Butch dedicates "Road Map for the Blues" to the late Clifford Antone who made him play it repeatedly in the backstage of Antone's blues club in Austin.

Butch plays over a dozen instruments on this finely mixed cd (mixed by the amazing Chet Himes). And though he claims that the only other picker (Flatlander guitarist Rob Gjersoe) "adds the real touch of class" to the arrangements, a single listening to these songs reveals surprises and a continuity that...calls for many repeats!!!

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