Terry Allen is an American Texas country and outlaw country singer-songwriter, painter and conceptual artist from Lubbock, Texas. He currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has recorded twelve albums of original songs, including the landmark releases Juarez and Lubbock . His song "Amarillo Highway" has been covered by Bobby Bare, Sturgill Simpson and Robert Earl Keen. Other artists who have recorded Allen's songs include Guy Clark, Little Feat, David Byrne, Doug Sahm, Ricky Nelson, and Lucinda Williams. Rolling Stone magazine describes his catalog, reaching back to Juarez as "..uniformly eccentric and uncompromising, savage and beautiful, literate and guttural." 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.
Allen began his musical career learning to play piano from his mother, Pauline Pierce Allen, who was a professional piano player. In 1962, while in High School, he wrote his first song, "Red Bird", which he would go on to perform live on Shindig! in 1965, and recorded on 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 while Rolling Stone called it an "outlaw classic". The 1979 follow up, was the groundbreaking, Lubbock. His deeply moving and satirical lyrics capture his complex memory of growing up in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas. According to AllMusic, Lubbock is "one of the finest country albums of all time" and a progenitor of the alt-country movement. His song "New Delhi Freight Train", from Lubbock , was first recorded by Little Feat in 1977 on their album, Time Loves a Hero. Guy Clark says, "It's such an interesting piece of work... It's the juxtaposition of the song." In 1980, Allen released, Smokin' the Dummy, which he recorded with the Panhandle Mystery Band. His 1983 album, Bloodlines, includes one of his most well-known songs, "Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy", which themes of hitchhiking and the road. In 1986, he collaborated with David Byrne on the soundtrack for Byrne's movie True Stories. Over the span of a decade, Allen released several avant-garde albums, Pedal Steal, Amerasia and Chippy, which crossover to visual, theatrical and musical medium interpretations. In 1996, he released the country album, Human Remains, which features guest spots from David Byrne, Joe Ely, Charlie and Will Sexton and Lucinda Williams. In 2007, Allen did a guest spot on the track "Ghost of Travelin' Jones" on Ryan Bingham's album, Mescalito. Allen's 2013 album, Bottom of the World, features his Guy Clark co-write, "Queenie's Song", inspired by the death of his dog.
