Lubbock Lights
(289 Films)
Local director Amy Maner claims Lubbock Lights shouldn’t be viewed as a complete retracing of this West Texas town’s music scene back to Buddy Holly and his predecessors. Rewriting history by glossing over the rock & roller and then having someone state on screen that Tommy X Hancock was more important isn’t an improvement. That aside, Lubbock Lights concentrates on those who are alive, and it’s heavy on the Flatlanders – Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock – along with Tommy X and Terry Allen. Archival footage of the original group at the Kerrville Folk Festival in the early Seventies is a delight, while a version “If You Were a Bluebird” from Montreux, late-Eighties, confirms that a bad rendition of the song is nearly impossible. Through extensive interviews, Maner connects Lubbock’s native artists to what Butch Hancock calls “the land where everything looms on the horizon.” An engaging chronicle of the area’s history and legends (the original “Lubbock Lights” were supposedly UFOs), answers as to why so much creativity has come out of Lubbock remain elusive.
This article appears in December 23 • 2005.