For Terri Hendrix shows and contact information, please visit our website (www.terrihendrix.com) — Jacy Meador, Intern 2012
Terri Hendrix wasn’t kidding when she closed her first book, “Cry Till You Laugh — The Part That Ain’t Art,” with the words “the beginning.” After 15 years of owning her own creative universe as a DIY recording artist and acclaimed performing songwriter (with a grassroots fanbase that spans both generations and the globe), the free-spirited but relentlessly hard-working Texan is jumping whole-heartedly into 2012 with a calendar already packed with exciting new projects. In addition to lining up a busy year of coast-to-coast tour dates — and planning a return to the studio this May to record a new album— Hendrix is in the process of launching her non-profit community arts center, the OYOU (which stands for “Own Your Own Universe.”) The OYOU, which will offer educational and therapeutic programs through music and other creative art forms, was inspired by the philanthropic spirit of Hendrix’s late mentor, Marion Williamson — a woman whose guidance not only helped Hendrix establish a thriving independent music career, but also instilled in her the compassionate worldview that set her on the path to receiving both the 2010 Art of Peace Award from San Antonio’s St. Mary’s University and the Distinguished Alumni Award from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene (where she studied classical music on scholarship). As for her next album (scheduled for a February 2013 release on her own Wilory Records), Hendrix aims to continue to raise her own songwriting and musical bar as she did on 2010’s eclectic “Cry Till You Laugh.” She released her book of essays and song lyrics as a companion piece to that album, subtitling it “The Part That Ain’t Art” in reference to the section sharing her own hard-learned music-industry survival and how-to tips. Critics have called it “candid and deeply personal” and “equal parts spiritual and practical … it’s honest, funny, useful, revelatory and moving.” The book’s limited first pressing sold out in under a year, prompting Hendrix to publish a revised and updated second addition in late 2011.
