Terry Allen in New Mexico Magazine

My New Mexico Magazine profile of singer/songwriter/sculptor/painter/Blood-Sucking Maniac and fellow Santa Fe resident Terry Allen is now online. You can read it HERE.

In a previous article, I described Terry as “not your typical musician. … He’s more like a mad scientist who uses music, painting, sculpture, film, video, and just about all aspects of theater in his art. He’ll get an idea and sometimes it will involve words, paintings, and often, music.”

His songs have been covered by the likes of Doug Sahm, Bobby Bare, Little Feat, Robert Earl Keen, Cracker, The Hickoids, Peter Rowan, Austin Lounge Lizards and others.

I first met Terry back in 1982 when he and his wife, writer/actor/artist Jo Harvey Allen, came here to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. We were introduced by a mutual friend, artist Paul Milosevich (who I mentioned in a previous Substack post concerning the late Sonny Curtis’ guitar) at a barbecue at Sunrise Springs, south of Santa Fe. This little party was catered by the fabled Lubbock cook C.B. “Stubb” Stubblefield on the day after my first Terry Allen concert at the old Sweeney Convention Center downtown.

And what a concert that was. I’d heard some of Terry’s music before — Paul had given me some of his albums. But his live show was a step beyond: raw, driving country and blues influenced rock ‘n’ roll, with Terry’s drawl making his sardonic lyrics seem like redneck revelations. Both Joe Ely and Butch Hancock took the stage. Stubb, wearing his trademark overalls, did as well, introducing himself with “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m a cook” before launching into a righteous “Stormy Monday” before his sidekick “Little Pete” — an actual little person — took the mike to deliver the best version of “The Thrill is Gone” I’d heard since the first time I saw B.B. King. At one point it seemed like half the audience was onstage singing and dancing.

The Allens spent several days in Santa Fe during that 1982 trip, staying at the old DeVargas Hotel, a historic if rundown joint that Terry described as “a flophouse” with a desk clerk who “totally looked like an undertaker.”

Because this trip coincided with July 4, Terry and Jo Harvey decided to celebrate the nation’s birthday with fireworks — which he shot out of their hotel window into the city parking lot across the street. Their sons Bukka and Bale — still kids at the time —naturally wanted to join in.

“And we said, ‘No, you’re too young to do that,’” Terry told me during our recent interview, laughing out loud at the memory.

Speaking of Jo Harvey Allen, here’s a clip from my favorite movie she was in. She portrayed a character called “The Lying Woman” in David Byrne’s film True Stories. Here’s her scene with John Goodman:

"I wrote 'Billie Jean.' And half of Elvis' songs."

After his anniversary party in Santa Fe, the next time I saw Terry was in the late ‘80s when I was covering City Hall for the Santa Fe New Mexican. Terry showed up at a public meeting to express concerns about a road project near his home. Yes, he and Jo Harvey had moved to Santa Fe the year before and bought a house here.

Terry and I spent a lot of time in our recent interview talking about his most recent album, Blood Sucking Maniacs, on which he’s joined by Jo Harvey, their two sons and three grandsons. Recorded mostly at the Allens’ west-side Santa Fe house, the record, featuring songs and spoken word pieces by various Allens, is a sweet testament to family and home.

Here’s the title song:

This wasn’t the first time I interviewed Terry. I interviewed him for the original No Depression magazine back in the late ‘90s. Unfortunately, the publication no longer has its archives available online for non-subscribers.

And it’s not even the first time I interviewed him for New Mexico Magazine. Back in March 2006, I did a little feature for the magazine on “alternative country” artists who call our state home. Others profiled for that piece were The Handsome Family, who have lived in Albuquerque for most of the current century and Santa Fe’s own Joe West. That 2006 story is no longer available on New Mexico Magazine’s site, but I pasted the text on my blog version of a Handsome Family record review. Here’s that link. (Be prepared to scroll down.)

But before you click that, go check the new damned article!

I’ll leave you with a classic Terry tune, “There Oughta Be a Law Against Sunny California,” recorded live on Santa Fe’s Plaza in 2012:

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