Terri Hendrix
“Own Your Own Universe”
“Terri Hendrix is no shrinking violet. She is a talent powerhouse and a mighty savvy businessperson as well. But in the end, it’s all about the music. Thankfully, that’s what Terri Hendrix does best, and her new album, Left Over Alls, is a testament to good country music vocals and skilled instrumentation … with harmonica, acoustic guitar, and mandolin, combined with her amazing vocals.” — CountryChart.com
When Terri Hendrix walked away from her opera scholarship in college, it was only because she found the classical music path too narrow for her free spirit. But there was just no shaking her love of music. Armed with her Mississippi-John-Hurt-style guitar chops, Hendrix began hauling her own P.A. in the back of her beat-up pick-up to gigs throughout Texas, in time evolving into one of the Lone Star State’s most beloved roots artists. Since then, fueled by an energetic stage presence and armed with a sound straddling that fine line dividing folk and country (and blues and pop and jazz and everything else in between), she’s packed listening rooms and theaters from coast to coast and played before thousands at such premiere events as the Newport Folk Festival, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the Austin City Limits Music Festival, the Kerrville Folk Festival, and, most recently, representing her homestate of Texas at the prestigious 42nd annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C..
Determined to “own her own universe,” Hendrix self-released her debut album in 1996, and she hasn’t looked back since — until now. The new Left Over Alls is Hendrix’s 11th release on her own Wilory Records, and her first official career “retro-perspective,” as she puts it playfully. But although it collects material dating back to her breakout 1998 sophomore album, Wilory Farm, it’s anything but a typical anthology. An eclectic collection of previously unreleased studio recordings (highlighted by “Be Willing,” already hailed by one critic as the most beautiful song she’s ever written), brand new covers (like her storming version of Waterboy Mike Scott’s “Bring ’Em All In”) and freshly re-inspired takes on some of her most beloved fan favorites (including “Hole in My Pocket” and her unofficial theme song, “Wallet”), Left Over Alls is a celebration of more than a decade’s worth of joyful music-making made by — and for — “The Spiritual Kind.” It’s a celebration that’s been long overdue. Hendrix is one of the most strikingly original singer-songwriters working today, as befits an artist who cites the varied likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Terry, and even the British techno-country-blues ensemble Alabama 3 among her biggest influences. Across the eclectic breadth of her catalog, which also includes 2002’s The Ring, 2004’s The Art of Removing Wallpaper, 2005’s Celebrate the Difference (a kid’s record), and 2007’s The Spiritual Kind, Hendrix has covered every genre from folk to country to pop to blues to Celtic to Tex-Mex to jazz to Western swing. She’s scored a satellite radio hit with the punky scream-along “Nerves,” co-written a Grammy-winning country instrumental (“Lil’ Jack Slade”) for the Dixie Chicks, and recently won first prize in the lyrics category of the international U.S.A. Songwriting Competition, for her Spiritual Kind song, “If I Had a Daughter.”
But even as Left Over Alls looks back, it also points to the future. She’s already itching to jump back into the studio to record not one but two new albums in 2009, including a jazz record — which will be her first time focusing her free-roaming muse on a single genre. She’s also working on her first book, a collection of her road journals and popular “Goat Notes” newsletters. And she still finds time to share her insights on both songwriting and “the part that’s not art” with students at her periodic “Life’s a Song” workshops. Hendrix insists she’s “not a business person,” but she’s no fool, either; she’s one of the few artists anywhere who can proudly lay claim to owning all of their own masters, an online store that pays all of her studio costs and tours, and a mailing list spanning three generations of fans. In a 2007 cover story, Texas Music observed that “Terri Hendrix creates the kind of music that makes you feel good, conceived and delivered with utter sincerity.” But as Left Over Alls and Hendrix’s myriad new projects and forward motion all make clear, even her biggest fans haven’t seen anything yet. Hendrix herself can’t wait to see — and hear — what comes next. “For the past 15 years, my life has revolved around the discovery of music and the joy of music,” she says. “And to get the opportunity to do what I do for my living … how beautiful is that?”
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