Band composed of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock. As you can probably tell by their names, they play Country Music, 93.7 percent of which (Country Music, not The Flatlanders' music) is admittedly crud. In her book Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America, Molly Ivins cites them as one of the great things about Texas. They formed in 1971 and got a record company to release an 8-track tape by them in 1972. It was not very popular at all. After that they went on to other careers until someone rediscovered their music in 1990 and the album More a Legend Than a Band (same as the 8-track) was released, which quickly became popular. Later The Flatlanders released Now Again and Wheels of Fortune, in 2002 and 2004 respectively, but from what I've been told they're not as good as their earlier stuff.
In my opinion, the band is noteworthy for two reasons:
Butch Hancock's pretty, sad voice
Damn good songwriting
Their biggest hit was
Dallas:
Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night?
Dallas is a jewel, yeah Dallas is a beautiful sight,
And Dallas is a jungle, but Dallas is a beautiful light.
Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night?