DALLAS (November 18, 2009) – On Tuesday, November 24, Texas music legends The Flatlanders will perform one night only in the new AT&T Performing Arts Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre. The Flatlanders, legendary Texas singers/song-writers Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock, have gained a cult following over the last 40 years and return to Dallas after traveling around the world to promote their newest album, Hills and Valleys. Opening for The Flatlanders is singer/songwriter Colin Gilmore, Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s son.
The Flatlanders is the first concert in the Wyly Theatre, which opened in mid-October. With just under 575 seats, and the ability to change the configuration of the Potter Rose Performance Hall to suit the needs of the production, the Wyly Theatre is Dallas’ newest venue for intimate music, theatre and dance performance. Tickets for The Flatlanders and Colin Gilmore are $35 and can be purchased online at www.attpac.org; or via phone at 214.880.0202. Tickets may also be purchased in person at the AT&T Performing Arts Center Box Office at the Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora Street (Monday through Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm; Sunday 11 am – 4 pm).
About The Flatlanders
Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock have been friends for almost 40 years, and members of that not-really-a-band, life-of-its-own musical entity known as The Flatlanders for nearly as long.
But when the trio decided to collaborate on songwriting for Hills And Valleys, the fourth in a rather elongated string of Flatlanders albums, they realized it wouldn’t be easy. They’d done it before for one thing, first for the soundtrack to the 1998 film The Horse Whisperer, then for their “reunion” album, 2002’s Now Again. So they already knew they’d be as likely to spend hours trading tales and laughing uproariously as they would trying to agree on a lyric.
But for Hills and Valleys, they not only managed to come up with eight eloquent joint efforts, they added Ely’s “Love’s Own Chains” and “There’s Never Been,” Hancock’s “Thank God For The Road,” one by Gilmore’s son, Colin (“The Way We Are”), and, for good measure, their arrangement of Woody Guthrie’s “Sowing on the Mountain.” That one serves not only as an homage to one of their musical guideposts but, as Hancock notes, a representation of the album’s general theme: “the ups and downs, emotionally, of peoples’ lives these days.”
“One moment you’re sitting on top of the world,” he explains, “and the next, you’re ‘sowing on the mountain and reaping in the valleys.’”
They didn’t set out with an agenda, but what Ely calls “the heavy-dutiness” of the last eight years—9/11, Katrina, Iraq, border walls going up while the economy careened downward—all were definitely on their minds as they wrote.
“Even though all of us are very active politically, a lot of times we don’t want to bring certain things into our songs,” Ely explains. “This time, we had to say, ‘Hey, let’s look at this, not in a pushy way, but really
figuring it out in our own heads. Putting it into a song and trying to unravel it.’”
UPCOMING SHOWS AT THE AT&T PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
(Through December 31, 2009)
Lexus Broadway Series: Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays Nov. 17 – 22
Winspear Opera House
Texas Ballet Theater: The Nutcracker Nov. 27 – Dec. 6
Winspear Opera House
Dallas Black Dance Theatre: Winter Series Dec. 2 – 6
Wyly Theatre
Brinker International Forum: Lisa Ling Dec. 7
Winspear Opera House
JAZZ ROOTS: Vocalese Dec. 9
(Manhattan Transfer and New York Voices with guest Jon Hendricks)
Winspear Opera House
The Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison Holiday Show Dec. 11
Wyly Theatre
Turtle Creek Chorale: A Very Special Holiday Special Dec. 11 – 13
Winspear Opera House
Lexus Broadway Series: South Pacific Dec. 15 – Jan. 3
Winspear Opera House
Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra: A Night at the Rock Opera Dec. 29- Jan. 2
Wyly Theatre
About the AT&T Performing Arts Center:
The AT&T Performing Arts Center, a new multi-venue Center for music, opera, theatre and dance will open in October 2009, completing the 25-year vision of the Dallas Arts District. The Center will provide multi-state-of-the-art facilities woven together by an urban park covering more than ten acres to create a dynamic cultural destination that will be unparalleled in the world. The Center will feature the following:
- The Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, designed in a modern horseshoe configuration, will seat 2,200 (with capacity up to 2,300), designed by Foster + Partners.
- The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre will serve as a gateway to the Dallas Arts District from the downtown Dallas business center and will seat 600, designed by REX/OMA, Joshua Prince-Ramus (partner in charge) and Rem Koolhaas.
- The completely new Annette Strauss Artist Square will be the Center’s outdoor entertainment venue, designed by Foster + Partners.
- The City Performance Hall will provide main stage production space for many of Dallas’ smaller performing arts organizations, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
- The Elaine D. and Charles A. Sammons Park will unify the venues within a lush urban oasis and will create a dynamic cultural destination in downtown Dallas, designed by Michel Desvigne.
- Two underground parking areas that will accommodate more than 850 vehicles.
The Dallas Fort Worth Lexus Dealer Association is the title sponsor of the Center’s Lexus Broadway Series, the official vehicle of the Center and its resident companies, the official valet sponsor and the naming rights holder for the Center’s two underground parking areas. More information on the AT&T Performing Arts Center is available at www.attpac.org.
Contact:
Maria May
AT&T Performing Arts Center
214.978.2834
maria.may@attpac.org