From the mid-'70s onward, there may be no greater maverick than Terry Allen in all of country music. Along with Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock -- all of whom he's known and collaborated with -- Allen is a standard-bearer of the Lubbock, Texas country scene. Though not widely heralded, this is perhaps the most progressive movement in all of contemporary country, digging into modern-day concerns with a gutsy, liberal perspective while maintaining a firm musical grounding in regional country and folk traditions. Allen is perhaps the most ambitious of them all, wr...