"No one with access to a
convertible, an empty highway and a good radio station ever should need a psychiatrist."
"People tell me it's country music, and I ask, 'Which country?' "
Words About Terry
Jimmie Dale Gilmore calls Terry Allen, whom he first saw perform when both were high-schoolers in Lubbock, "the impetus
for me to become a songwriter . . . It wasn't his style that affected me, just the pure fact that he was so brazenly creative."
Of Allen the visual artist, director Ron Gleason of the Tyler Museum of Art says, "He's one of the two or three most important
contemporary artists in the country."
When drummer Davis McLarty of Joe Ely's band recently had the chance to accompany Allen, he said he felt like bowing
down and admitting, "We're not worthy." McLarty calls Allen a "chicken-fried renaissance man . . . the world's best-kept
secret."
ROLLING STONE ARTICLE (MARCH '99)
