It's been four years too long since Houston's seen country folk singer Butch Hancock. Rolling Stone magazine describes him as "a raspy-voiced West Texas mystic with an equal affinity for romantic border balladry and Zen paradox." The songwriter has been touring for the past year and a half with his longtime friends and collaborators Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, who, with him, are known as the Flatlanders.