For other similarly named individuals, see Terry Allen.
Terry Allen (born May 7, 1943)[1] is an American singer-songwriter and visual artist from Lubbock, Texas. Allen's musical career spans several albums in the Texas country and outlaw country genres, and his visual art includes painting, conceptual art, performance, and sculpture, with a number of notable bronze sculptures installed publicly in various cities throughout the United States. He currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Allen also works with a wide variety of media including musical and theatrical performances, sculpture, painting, drawing and video, and installations which incorporate any and all of these media. His work has been shown throughout the United States and internationally.[4]
Kansas City, Missouri is home to both his controversial public sculpture "Modern Communication"[9] as well as The Belger Collection[10][11] which features Terry Allen as one of their seven "core artists".
Music
Allen first learned to play piano from his mother, Pauline Pierce Allen, a professional musician.[12] In 1962, while in high school, he wrote his first song, "Red Bird",[13] which he would go on to perform live on Shindig! in 1965,[14] and record for his 1980 album Smokin' the Dummy.
In 1975, Allen released his debut art-country album, Juarez, which is considered "one of the greatest concept albums of all time" according to PopMatters.[15]Rolling Stone later called it an "outlaw classic".[16]
Allen's 1979 follow up was the groundbreaking Lubbock (On Everything). The songwriter's deeply moving and satirical lyrics capture his complex memory of growing up in his hometown of Lubbock. According to AllMusic, Lubbock (On Everything) is "one of the finest country albums of all time" and a progenitor of the alt-country movement.[17] One of the songs, "New Delhi Freight Train", was first recorded by Little Feat and appears on their 1977 album Time Loves a Hero.[18]Guy Clark said of the song, "It's such an interesting piece of work. It’s really fun to play. The music, it’s really nice. But it's the juxtaposition of the song."[19]
In 1980, Allen released Smokin' the Dummy, recorded with the Panhandle Mystery Band.[1]
His 1983 album Bloodlines includes one of his better-known songs, "Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy", the tale of a driver who picks up a hitchhiker on the road one night who claims to be Jesus Christ.[20]
In 1986, Allen collaborated with director David Byrne on the soundtrack for the film True Stories.