The Flatlanders

The 1990 Flatlanders compilation wasn't called More a Legend Than a Band for nothing. In the early 1970s, they were briefly one of the first and most important acts to come out of the nascent Texas singer/songwriter community, with three tunesmiths who approached country music with a unique spirit of freedom and unpretentious literacy. In time, the group's key members -- Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock -- would become stars in their own right, and in the 2000s the trio reunited on-stage and in the recording studio, periodically working together from then on. More a Legend Than a Band preserved the 1972 recordings that first made them cult heroes, 2002's Now Again was a reunion set that found them still welcome collaborators, and 2021's Treasure of Love showed they could still make magic after almost 50 years together.