DAME CHARLENE HANCOCK: ONE HIP GRANDMA

Austin American Statesman
DECEMBER 19, 2002

Austin360  -  XLENT  insert
MUSIC Section

BY MICHAEL CORCORAN

"If you had a family group in the '70s, you were either the Partridge Family or the Manson Family," Charlene Condray Hancock says with a laugh, as she grinds out a cigarette in an ashtray at the Broken Spoke. "I guess you¹d place us comfortably between those two extremes."

While she waited to go onstage with the Texana Dames, featuring her daughters Conni and Traci Lamar, Hancock was doing some reminiscing.  The subject was the Supernatural Family Band, which moved to Austin in 1980 to show Asleep At the Wheel fans what a true hippie western swing band looked and sounded like.  Barefooted patriarch Tommy Hancock sawed out fiddle tunes on the dance floor while his wife (who played basslines on the keyboard) and their kids (guitars, drums) gave the songs of Buck Owens and Bob Wills a sense of bright-eyed wonderment.  Every Thursday night at the now defunct Shorthorn Lounge on North Lamar, bikers, rednecks and free spirits were elbow to elbow.


 The SFB¹s story was the story of Austin in the '70s and early '80s.  They were passing through and never left. "We were just so happy that we¹d lucked out and found Austin," Hancock says of that period when the band fell right in with the Alvin Crow/Marcia Ball crowd.

Hancock¹s been issued a license to get nostalgic.  And the Supernatural Family Band¹s line 1986 swan song, "Lubbock Lights," has just been issued on CD for the first time. "I couldn¹t bring myself to listen to all that old stuff at first," says the 64-year-old grandma with the glittery headband. "But when I finally did, it just brought back so many fun times."

The Hancocks (no relation to Butch) put out their own records long before that practice became common.  Then again, no label back in Kenny Rogers' heyday would¹ve signed a country band that covered Earth, Wind & Fire, no matter how much the boys drooled over Conni. "Tommy always encouraged the kids to play the kind of music they liked.  Conni liked the blues, so we worked that into the set.  Traci was on a big Stevie Wonder kick, so we did some of his songs."

Charlene Condray received similar encouragement in her teen years in Lubbock from her mother Punkin, whom everybody called Punk. "My mother was really the best singer in our family, but she didn¹t have the ambition or the wherewithal to pursue a music career," says Hancock. "But I did."

As a 14-year-old, Charlene sang every Saturday afternoon on a local TV show.  She was also tight with Buddy Holly and that Cricket crew and recorded at the famed New Mexico of Holly¹s Producer Norman Petty.  Some of those Petty-produced numbers, such as "Do You Remember?" and "My Summer Heart," posit Charlene as a cornfed Connie Francis. "Norman didn¹t have any sense of humor," she says, "which made the whole process kind of a drag.  But you couldn¹t beat the sound of that little studio."

Tommy Hancock wrote those songs for Charlene after he hired her to be the "girl singer" in his Roadside Playboys country dance band.  She was only 15 at the time, nine years younger than Tommy, but they fell in love and two years later were married.  Charlene soon became pregnant with Conni and by the age of 23 had four kids. "I always sang with the band until my seventh month," says Charlene.  To give the family a bit of stability, Tommy came off the road and opened the Cotton Club in Lubbock in the mid-¹60s with his stepfather, a former chef. "The kids were always around at the club.  (My son) Joaquin used to love Tommy¹s drummer Dick Barnett, so we¹d set up a little place for him behind the drums and he¹d fall asleep there sometimes."

The club life started wearing on the family life, so one day they up and left, settling in a canyon in northern New Mexico. "We lived in a log cabin with no electricity, no plumbing and no phone for about three years," Charlene recalls. "That¹s where the kids started playing the instruments.  We had to entertain ourselves."  The Supernatural Family Band was born and moved to Denver, which served as home base for six years as the group toured the Rockies in a converted school bus.

"My mom had to, basically, give up her musical career to raise a family," says Conni. "But she didn¹t give up her music.  My parents figured out a way to make it work for the best of everybody."

With her 50 years in the music business now succinctly compiled, Charlene brims with the satisfaction of knowing her musical legacy is secure. "We put my CD together for my grandchildren," she says. "I wanted them to know that their grandma used to be hip."

Used to be?