David Hanners was born to tell stories. Or, more accurately, show stories. He takes the writer’s maxim of “show, don’t tell” seriously. He’s from the corn and soybean fields of East Central Illinois and now lives in Manchester, England. Need some storytelling bona fides? He has a Pulitzer Prize.

In 2025, he and Kevin Kadidlo collaborated on two powerful Americana EPs — Llano Estacado, followed by Slouching Towards Huntsville. David wrote 10 of the 12 songs, and they feature stories culled from his time spent living on the Texas Panhandle. They are songs of the expanse, the sinners and saints, the broken hearts, the dreams, the endless highways and the promise of a sunrise.

His songs feature vibrant characters inhabiting tales that ring true in ways reminiscent of Steve Earle, Ray Wylie Hubbard, the McMurtrys (James AND Larry…) and Rodney Crowell. His first record, Nothingtown, was a Critic’s Year-end Top Ten selection by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The follow-up release, The Traveler’s Burden, was “like Townes Van Zandt doing Nebraska,” said MinnPost.com

His third independent release, There Are No Secrets in This Town “plays out like a musical version of a McMurtry novel,” wrote Terry Paul Roland, a featured contributor to No Depression. 

Critic Mark Bennett of the Terre Haute Tribune-Star summed up his music as, “authentic, sparse prairie folk.”

David grew up in Casey, a town of 2,300 in East Central Illinois. Drive 20 minutes to the east and you’ll see where James Jones wrote “From Here to Eternity.” Drive 20 minutes south and you’ll find the hometown and final resting place of folk legend Burl Ives. Drive 20 minutes north and you’ll be in the hometown of “Citizen Kane” cinematographer Gregg Toland.

And, yes, he has a Pulitzer Prize (Explanatory Journalism) and spent most of his life working as a reporter. He brings a reporter’s eye to his songs, and that comes through on your first listen.

The photograph used on the website (and on the cover of the “Llano Estacado” EP) was taken by photographer Jack Delano (1914-1997) on the Llano Estacado in Texas. It was among photos he shot while employed by the Farm Security Administration, one of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs to fight rural poverty during the Great Depression. Even in a time of great economic turmoil, the Roosevelt administration believed it was important to have photographers, artists and writers document America. Even songwriters got involved; Woody Guthrie’s time writing songs for the Bonneville Power Administration in 1941 is considered among his most productive periods.

They did it because an honest portrayal of history is one of the legacies we owe future generations. At a time when the U.S. has a regime hell-bent on whitewashing history and lying to future generations, we need more Jack Delanos and Woody Guthries and Mark Rothkos and Willem de Koonings and Dorothea Langes and Jackson Pollocks and Ralph Ellisons and Aaron Coplands and all the rest.