Gary Hankins
United States, Texas, Burkburnett
Albums
About Gary Hankins
Hankins was born in Wichita Falls Texas where his father spent forty years playing with a country western band. Everyone in Hankins' family was musical. He remembers sitting with his family while his father, mother,
and uncle would sing country ballads set against the storied Texas landscape.
Hankins moved to San Diego when he was still a baby and grew up near the
sea, where his grandfather, a Portuguese fisherman, was still working on a
tuna fleet near the bay. Hankins moved back and forth from Texas to
California for the next few decades absorbing on one side, the country
winds of the Texas grassland and on the other, the salt air and ocean
culture of San Diego.
On the coast, Hankins learned to love surfing, the freedom of the rolling sea and the musical independence of the ocean wind. Surfing his way from
Mexico up the coast, Hankins visited and eventually moved to Hawaii where
he spent several years surfing among the paradise shores. As if carried by
the waves he eventually crossed the ocean again and, (by land) moved
around the west living in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas.
Hankins' history has been as varied as his address: his love for surfing he moved to Hawaii for a few years and finally landed back in San Diego and in
California he became an actor being featured in dozens of commercials and
bit parts. Acting, chance, and romance carried him across the ocean again
to the Czech Republic where he acted in a cult film and toured Europe,
falling in love with the landscape of Prague and Paris.
Eventually, while still living in California, a series of events would
irreversibly change the direction of Hankins' life. It started with the
tragic death of an old friend and the news that his father was growing
ill. The musical blood in Hankins' veins was already stirring when he
moved back to Texas to be near his father.
Back in Wichita Falls, Hankins found himself inspired. Everywhere he looked, musical ideas filled his mind. A pasture of grazing cows, the wind flowing through the windows in his father's house. Although Hankins had
always played and sang music, something in his life had snapped, and he
knew that there was something inside him that needed to come out.
Over the next year, Hankins began to write prolifically. The Texas landscape and culture along with the loves, and tragedies of his life were cohering into a new
persona, a musical voice that Hankins begun to nurture.
Gary Hankins (expired link). "Spot of Blue" contains the freedom of the sea, the open air of Texas, the delicate colors of Hawaii, and the music is unlike anything else.
Sometimes the music is haunting, other times forceful and laden with the triumphs and failures of a rich life. Hankins' vocals can capture the
weary cynicism of Johnny Cash or the soft optimist of Jim Croce.
Spot of Blue's debut "Livin' Life This Way," is sure to capture fans from across the musical spectrum. With his first album recorded, Hankins believes he has found a calling worth the time. He already has another
album planned for the beginning of next year and new songs continue to
emerge in his consciousness.
"It's all about visualization," he says. "I want people to hear the music
and create their own visualization, their own ideas about it." Hankins'
music is full of imagination and it is not hard to imagine that while listening, we might be drawn into the curving spray of the California coast or thrust into the shadows of a lonely foothill. Spot of Blue has the power and honesty to inspire, but the rest is up to you.
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Past Events
Thu
Nov 12
6:00 PM
All Ages
Parisian Salon
United States, Texas, Wichita Falls, 1200 Brook Ave.