The Flatlanders - Stars in My Life

THE FLATLANDERS


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The Flatlanders are a country band with considerable country-rock influence from Lubbock, Texas founded by singers/songwriters/guitarists Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock.

They garnered little attention during their brief original incarnation (1972-73), but when the band's three core members later found success in solo careers, interest in The Flatlanders was rekindled, and the band has reformed a few times since.

The Flatlanders formed in 1972 in Lubbock, Texas. Gilmore, Ely and Hancock formed the group, with Gilmore as the main songwriter and singer, with several other collaborators: their friends Steve Wesson, previously a non-musician, on autoharp and musical saw and Tony Pearson on mandolin and backup harmony, as well as Tommy Hancock (no relation) on fiddle and string bassist Syl Rice.

One of the band's first appearance was at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1972, where they were named one of the winners of the inaugural Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Singer/Songwriter Competition.

The band's first recording project was produced in 1972 by Shelby Singleton, the then-owner of Memphis, Tennessee's famed Sun Studios. A promotional single, Gilmore's "Dallas", was a commercial failure, and the planned album, All American Music, was all but scrapped, being released only in a small run on 8 track tape in order to fulfill contractual obligations.

The Flatlanders performed through 1973 before disbanding. By the end of the decade, however, Gilmore, Ely and Hancock had all found success as solo performers, and rumors of their earlier obscure collaboration began to circulate. In 1991, Rounder Records issued the 1972 sessions as More a Legend Than a Band, now recognized as a milestone of progressive,alternative country, at once reminiscent of early country music from the 1930s and '40s, and with an otherworldly quality from Wesson's shimmering musical saw and Gilmore's mysticalleanings, as on his song "Bhagavan Decreed."

The three musicians continued to reunite for occasional Flatlanders performances. In 1998 they contributed to the soundtrack of The Horse Whisperer, and then in 2002 released their long-awaited follow-up album, Now Again, on New West Records. In 2004 this was followed with Wheels of Fortune, again on New West. In 2004, New West released Live '72 a live recording of the then-unknown country band performing at the One Knite honky-tonk in Austin, Texas.

The Flatlanders' new album, Hills & Valleys, was released by New West on March 31, 2009. The album features the classic vocals of the three members with the ephemeral sounds and lyrics that have made The Flatlanders popular.

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• Jimmie Dale Gilmore: "Imagine" (texasmusicmatters.kut.org)

Joe Ely - Cool Rockin' Loretta

From allmusic.com:

Biography
by William Ruhlmann


Country-rock singer/songwriter/guitarist Joe Ely was born Earle R. Ely on February 9, 1947, in Amarillo, TX. His family had worked for the Rock Island Line railroad dating back to the start of the century. When he was 12, the family moved to Lubbock, TX, where his father ran a used clothing store. Inspired by seeing Jerry Lee Lewis perform when he was a child, Ely aspired to a musical career, and he briefly took violin and steel guitar lessons before turning to the guitar. His father died when he was 14, and his mother was institutionalized for a year due to the trauma, so he and his brother were forced to stay with relatives in other cities. When the family came back together in Lubbock, he took a job washing dishes to bring in some money.


He also dropped out of school and began playing music professionally in local clubs, forming a band called the Twilights that became successful enough for him to quit being a dishwasher. Soon after, however, he became sufficiently restless to begin traveling, at first to other cities in Texas, then California, and later New York, with even a trip to Europe working for a theatrical company. This peripatetic period in his life lasted a full seven years, from 1963 to 1970. In the summer of 1971, back in Lubbock, he teamed up with a couple of singer/songwriter friends with whom he was living, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, along with some other musicians, to form the Flatlanders, a country-folk group. They attracted interest from the small Nashville record label Plantation Records and in March 1972 went to Nashville and cut an album that Plantation barely released, credited to Jimmie Dale & the Flatlanders. (The album is reputed to have been issued only as an eight-track tape.)


Ely returned to rambling around the country, but he was back in Lubbock by 1974, when he began putting together a permanent backup band to play there and around Texas. The Joe Ely Bandfeatured Ely on acoustic guitar and vocals; Jesse Taylor on electric guitar; Lloyd Maines on steel guitar; Gregg Wright on bass; andSteve Keeton on drums. A demo tape made by the group was passed to members of Jerry Jeff Walker's backup band, who gave it toWalker, who gave it to an A&R representative of Walker's label, MCA Records, and in the fall of 1975, Ely was signed to MCA. During 1976, he recorded his debut album, Joe Ely, which was released on January 10, 1977, along with a single, "All My Love," that reached the Billboard country charts. That song was one of five original Ely compositions on the LP; the other five had been written by Hancock or Gilmore.


Over a year later, on February 13, 1978, Ely followed with his second album, Honky Tonk Masquerade. (By this point, accordionist Ponty Bone had joined the backup band.) Again, the collection was a combination of Ely originals, including the title song, "Fingernails" (aJerry Lee Lewis-styled rocker with piano by Shane Keister), and "Cornbread Moon" (all of which were released as singles), and songs written by Hancock and Gilmore (the latter's "Tonight I Think I'm Gonna Go Downtown," co-written with John X. Reed, had appeared on the Flatlanders' album). There was also a cover of Hank Williams' "Honky Tonkin'." Honky Tonk Masquerade was well received critically upon release (and a 1990 article in Rolling Stone magazine named it one of the essential albums of the 1970s), but it didn't sell. Ely was back in record stores a year later with Down on the Drag, released in February 1979. Another four Hancock compositions were introduced, along with five Ely originals. The album reached the Cash Box country chart.


Ely and his band toured extensively in the late '70s, headlining small shows and opening for bigger acts. Among these, surprisingly enough, was the British punk rock band the Clash. The group befriended Ely, however, and asked him to open shows for them back in the U.K. This expanded his following overseas and exposed him to rock audiences. The British division of MCA took advantage of the attention to record an Ely live album during the tour, and Live Shots, credited to the Joe Ely Band, was released only in the U.K. in the spring of 1980. (By this point, Robert Marquam had replacedSteve Keeton as Ely's drummer.) Meanwhile, the British reissue label Charly Records licensed the Flatlanders' recordings and gave them their first widely distributed release on a compilation called One Road More.


Back in the U.S., the American division of MCA initially declined to release Live Shots, preferring to wait for Ely's next studio album and continue to try to break him as a country artist. That album, Musta Notta Gotta Lotta, appeared in March 1981 on SouthCoast Records, an imprint founded by Ely's manager, still manufactured and distributed by MCA. (By now, Michael Robberson had replaced Gregg Wright on bass; Smokey Joe Miller [saxophone] and Reese Wynans[keyboards] had joined the band; and Lloyd Maines had dropped out of touring, although he continued to participate in Ely studio recordings.) Again, it mixed Ely originals like the title song with songs by Hancock and Gilmore (the latter's contribution being "Dallas," another song drawn from the Flatlanders' album). The commercial response to Musta Notta Gotta Lotta reflected Ely's increasing profile in both the country and rock markets. It reached the Cash Box country chart and even the Billboard and Cash Box pop charts, with the title song earning enough airplay to reach Billboard's mainstream rock chart. In October 1981, SouthCoast/MCA finally bowed to popular pressure and released Live Shots in the U.S., packaging it with a bonus four-song EP, Texas Special. It reached the Billboard pop chart.


By the end of 1982, Ely was arguably on the cusp of breaking through commercially as a country-rock crossover artist. He had opened shows for the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and even the Rolling Stones. But he had been touring continually for years, and the pace wore on him and his band. His guitarist, Jesse Taylor, quit. His drummer, Robert Marquam, died. He broke up what was left of the band and retreated to his home in Austin, TX, with his wife, Sharon Glaudt and, soon after, a baby daughter, Marie Elena. There he began writing songs intended for a movie and toying with computers and synthesizers. The financing for the film ran out, but by then he had a batch of songs that he took to Los Angeles and recorded in synth rock arrangements, calling the resulting disc Hi-Res. It appeared in May 1984, his first new music in more than three years, receiving mixed reviews and not selling.


Ely submitted another album to MCA, which the label declined to release, bringing his contract to an end. In a sense, he started over, assembling a new band and hitting the road. The new group featured lead guitarist David Grissom, bassist Jimmy Pettit, and drummerDavis McLarty, plus keyboardist Mitch Watkins, a holdover from Hi-Res. Ely signed to the independent HighTone Records label and in July 1987 released his sixth studio album, Lord of the Highway. Reviews were favorable, for a disc that again contained a couple ofButch Hancock songs, although Ely's own "Me and Billy the Kid" garnered the most attention, with covers recorded by Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Marty Stuart, among others. Dig All Night followed in October 1988. All the songs were written by Ely, with the title track co-written by Watkins, who did not perform on the album. (Some had been written prior to Lord of the Highway for the rejected MCA album.) Among them were "Settle for Love," which was covered byKelly Willis, and "For Your Love," which Chris LeDoux took into the country chart in 1993.


By the late '80s, Ely's sound, having long since lost its more overt country elements, had moved toward the mainstream rock style of John Mellencamp and Tom Petty. At the same time, however, a more rocking style had become more acceptable in Nashville, where, for example, Dwight Yoakam, Hank Williams, Jr., and Steve Earle had all topped the country album chart in recent years. In that atmosphere, MCA again became interested in Ely, re-signing him and issuing his second concert recording, Live at Liberty Lunch, in November 1990. Ely's first live album in a decade, it found him performing the best of the songs he had recorded since Live Shots. It spent five weeks in the Billboard country chart. Also in 1990, Rounder Records released the Flatlanders' More a Legend than a Band, a revised version of the group's barely released 1972 album.


In early 1992, Ely joined together with John Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam, John Prine, and James McMurtry in an impromptu country-rock singer/songwriter supergroup called Buzzin' Cousins to record a Mellencamp composition, "Sweet Suzanne," for the soundtrack of the film Falling from Grace, in which Mellencamp starred. The track reached the country singles chart. In September 1992, MCA released Ely's eighth studio album, Love and Danger. Ely turned to acting in July 1994, appearing in the musical Chippy: Diaries of a West Texas Hooker at Lincoln Center in New York City. He also contributed songs to the score and appeared on the cast album, released by Hollywood Records. MCA released his ninth studio album, Letter to Laredo, in August 1995, by which time Ely's bassist was Glenn Fukunaga. If not quite "unplugged," it was more of an acoustic effort than previous releases and prominently featured flamenco guitarist Teye, with occasional harmony and background vocals by Jimmie Dale Gilmore,Raul Malo of the Mavericks, and Bruce Springsteen. It reached the Billboard country chart.


Although Ely had produced albums by Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock, the three resisted calls for them to reunite as the Flatlanders until 1998, when they resurrected the band name to record the song "South Wind of Summer" for the soundtrack to the film The Horse Whisperer, issued in April. In May, Ely followed with his tenth studio album, Twistin' in the Wind. It spent four weeks in the Billboard country chart, but after releasing four albums without scoring a big hit, MCA again dropped Ely. In September, he participated in the self-titled debut by the Tex-Mex supergroup Los Super Seven, alongside Freddy Fender, Joel Jose Guzman, Flaco Jiménez, Rubén Ramos, Doug Sahm, Rick Trevino, and David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas of Los Lobos, and he shared the album's Grammy Award for Best Mexican-American/Tejano Music Performance.


In 2000, Ely had two live recordings in release. His 1990 solo acoustic appearance at the Cambridge Folk Festival in the U.K. resulted in the six-song EP Live at the Cambridge Folk Festival on BBC/Strange Fruit Records in Great Britain. And he signed to Rounder, which released his third full-length concert collection, Live @ Antone's, in June. His band for the shows, taped in January 1999, consisted of returning members Jesse Taylor and Lloyd Maines, along with Teye, bassist Gary Herman, drummer Rafael O'Malley Gayol, and accordion player Joel Guzman. The album reached the Billboard country chart. The Flatlanders, meanwhile, had taken another step toward reconstitution by launching a national tour in the late winter of 2000. In May 2002, Ely, Gilmore, and Hancock finally re-formedthe Flatlanders for a new full-length album, Now Again, released by New West Records. Ely co-wrote 12 of the 14 songs and produced the set, which reached the Top 20 of the Billboard country chart. Ely's 11th studio album, Streets of Sin, was released in July 2003. It reached the Billboard country chart. Having waited 30 years between their first and second albums, the Flatlanders were ready with their third, Wheels of Fortune, within two years. Again produced by Ely, it was released in January 2004 and spent 11 weeks in the Billboard country chart. Among the four Ely compositions on the disc was "Indian Cowboy," a song he had not previously recorded, but which had been recorded over the years by Guy Clark, Tom Russell, Townes Van Zandt, and Katy Moffatt. Six months later, there was another Flatlanders album, the archival Live '72.


Ely had sat out the second Los Super Seven album, Canto, in 2001, but he returned for 2005's Heard It on the X. Leaving Rounder, he founded his own record label, Rack 'Em Records, and in February 2007 released his 12th studio album, Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch. The same month, the University of Texas Press released his book of memoirs of life on the road, Bonfire of Roadmaps. That spring, he embarked on a tour with Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, and Guy Clark. At the same time, in April, Rack 'Em had its second release,Silver City, an acoustic collection of early Ely compositions in newly recorded performances featuring only Ely and accordionist Joel Guzman. Ely and Guzman were co-credited on Rack 'Em's third release, Live Cactus!, which appeared in March 2008.

Joe Ely - Me And Billy The Kid (Live)

Image via Wikipedia

Joe Ely (born February 9, 1947 in Amarillo, Texas) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist whose music touches on honky-tonk, country and rock and roll.


He has had a genre-crossing career, performing with Bruce Springsteen, Uncle Tupelo, Los Super Seven, The Clancy Brothers and James McMurtry in addition to his early work with The Clash and more recent acoustic tours with Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, and Guy Clark.


Ely spent his formative years from age 12 in Lubbock, Texas.


Shortly after attending Lubbock High School, in 1970, with fellow Lubbock musicians Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock, he formed The Flatlanders. According to Ely, "Jimmie [Gilmore] was like a well of country music. He knew everything about it. And Butch was from the folk world. I was kinda the rock & roll guy, and we almost had a triad. We hit it off and started playing a lot together. That opened up a whole new world I had never known existed."


In 1972, the band released their first and— until 2002's Now Again— only album, but have appeared together on each other's albums. Since the band's initial break-up just after their first album was cut, the three musicians have followed individual paths.


Ely's own first, self titled album, was released in 1977.


The following year, his band played London, where he met punk rock group The Clash. Impressed with each other's performances, the two bands would later tour together, including appearances in Ely's hometown of Lubbock, as well as Laredo and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Ely would contribute backing vocals on the Clash single "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" from Combat Rock (1982), and Ely's Live Shots includes photos of Clash member Joe Strummer performing as a guest with Ely's band.


Throughout his career, Ely has issued a steady stream of albums, most on the MCA label. Ely's energetic live performances have become legendary, and he has released a live album roughly every ten years (the last was LIVE Cactus in 2008).


In the late 1990s Ely was asked to write songs for the soundtrack of Robert Redford's movie The Horse Whisperer, which led to re-forming The Flatlanders with Gilmore and Hancock. A new album from the trio followed in 2002, with a third in 2004.


In February 2007, Ely released Happy Songs From Rattlesnake Gulch on his own label, Rack 'Em Records. Ely said in an interview with Country Standard Time that he thought it would be easier to release the material on his own label instead of dealing with a regular record label and their release cycles. A book of Ely's writings, Bonfire of Roadmaps, was published in early 2007 by the University of Texas Press. In early 2008, Ely released a new live album featuring Joel Guzman on accordion recorded at the Cactus Cafe in Austin, Texas late 2006.


The Flatlanders released their newest album "Hills and Valleys" on March 31, 2009.

Listen to Joe Ely, Me And Billy The Kid:





Well, me and Billy The Kid never got along:
I didn't like the way he cocked his hat and he wore his gun all wrong.

Well, we had the same girlfriend and he never forgot it.
She had a cute little Chihuahua till one day he up and shot it.
He rode the hard country down the New Mexico line.
He had a silver pocket watch that he never did wind.
He crippled a piano player for playin' his favorite song.

Yeah, me and Billy The Kid, we ain't never got along.
Yeah, me and Billy The Kid never got along:
I didn't like the way he buckled his belt and he wore his gun all wrong.

He was bad to the bone, all hopped up on speed.
I would've left him alone if it wasn't for that senorita:
He gave her silver and he paid her hotel bill.
But it was me she loved: she said she always will.
I'd always go see her whenever Billy was gone
Yeah, me and Billy The Kid, we never got along.

Yeah, me and Billy The Kid never got along:
I didn't like the way he buckled his boots an' he wore his gun all wrong.

One day, I said to Billy: "I got this foolproof scheme.
"We'll rob Wells Fargo, it's bustin at the seams."
I admit that I framed him. I don't feel no remorse.
It was just my way of gettin' even with the man who shot my horse.
Yeah, Billy reached for his gun but his gun was on wrong.
Yeah, me and Billy The Kid, we never got along.

Well, me and Billy The Kid never got along:
But I did like the way he swayed in the wind while I played him his favorite song.
Now my baby sings harmony with me, to "La Cucaracha".
She winds her silver pocket watch and pets her new Chihuahua.
I moved into the hotel, I got a room with a shower.
We lay an' listen to that watch tick hour after hour.
Outside, I hear the wind blowin' oh so strong:
Me and Billy The Kid, we never got along!

We never got along.

Joe Ely Homepage
Buy Joe Ely Alums

Butch Hancock - Boxcars

 Butch Hancock is a country/folk music recording artist and song writer. He was born July 12, 1945 in Lubbock, Texas. Hancock is a member of The Flatlanders along with Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, but he has principally performed a solo career.


Hancock entered architecture school but dropped out in 1968 and worked for nearly a year driving a tractor on his father's farm. He recalls that the experience of elemental simplicity and reading books opened up the metaphysical universe for him.


In 1972, he formed The Flatlanders together with his old high school friends. Although critics were positive, the enterprise was not successful and they disbanded the following year. Hancock continued to write songs and in 1978 he founded a recording company, Rainlight Records and released his first solo album, West Texas Waltzes and Dust-Blown Tractor Tunes. He continued to bring out albums with folk tunes, first with only guitar and harmonica and subsequently with expanded use of instruments and arrangements. From the late 1990s he has reappeared with the Flatlanders, with whom he was to release a series of albums in 2004.

Hancock lived in Austin, a place congenial to his progressive country style, for a couple of decades until he moved to the ghosttown region of Terlingua, Texas in the '90s, preferring more rural environs.

Bio

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Butch Hancock: Boxcars





Well I gave all my money to the banker this month
Now I got no more money to spend
She smiled when she saw me comin' through that door
When I left she said, "Come back again."
I watched them lonesome boxcar wheels
Turnin' down the tracks out of town
And it's on that lonesome railroad track
I'm gonna lay my burden down.

I was raised on a farm the first years of my life
Life was pretty good they say
I'll probably live to be some ripe ol' age
If death'll stay out of my way
This world can take my money and time
But it sure can't take my soul
I'm goin' down to the railroad tracks
Watch them lonesome boxcars roll

There's some big ol' Buicks at the Baptist church
Cadillacs at the Church of Christ
I parked my camel by an ol' haystack
I'll be lookin for that needle all night
There ain't gonna be no radial tires
Turnin' down the streets of gold
I'm goin down to the railroad tracks
And watch them lonesome boxcars roll

Now if you ever heard the whistle on a fast freight train
Beatin' out a beautiful tune
If you ever seen the cold blue railroad tracks
Shinin' by the light of the moon
If you ever felt the locomotive shake the ground
I know you don't have to be told
Why I'm goin down to the railroad tracks
And watch them lonesome boxcars roll.

Yeah, I'm goin down to the railroad tracks
Watch them lonesome boxcars roll

Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Dallas

"Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eye."






Dallas, by Jimmie Dale Gilmore:


"Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night?

Well Dallas is a jewel, oh yeah, Dallas is a beautiful sight. And Dallas is a jungle but Dallas gives a beautiful light.

Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night? Well, Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you're down. But when you are up, she's the kind you want to take around. But Dallas ain't a woman to help you get your feet on the ground.

Yes Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you're down.

Well, I came into Dallas with the bright lights on my mind, But I came into Dallas with a Dollar and a dime.
 
Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eye.
A steel and concrete soul with a warm hearted love disguise. A rich man who tends to believe in his own lies.

Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes."



Jimmie Dale Gilmore (born May 6, 1945) is a country singer, songwriter, actor, recording artist and producer, currently living in Austin, Texas. Gilmore is a native of the Texas Panhandle, having been born in Amarillo, Texas and raised in Lubbock, Texas. His earliest musical influence was Hank Williams and the honky tonk brand of country music that his father played. In the 1950s, he was exposed to the emerging rock and roll of other Texans such as Roy Orbison and Lubbock native Buddy Holly, as well as to Johnny Cash. He was profoundly influenced in the 1960s by the likes of The Beatles and Bob Dylan and the folk music and blues revival in that decade.

With Joe Ely and Butch Hancock, Gilmore founded The Flatlanders. The group has been performing on and off since 1972. The band's first recording project, from the early 1970s, was barely distributed. It has since been acknowledged, through Rounder's 1991 reissue (More a Legend Than a Band), as a milestone of progressive, alternative country. The three friends continued to reunite for occasional Flatlanders performances, and in May 2002 released a long-awaited follow-up album, Now Again, on New West records.

After briefly attending Texas Tech University, Gilmore spent much of the 1970s in an ashram in Denver, Colorado, studying metaphysics with teenaged Indian guru Prem Rawat, also known as Maharaji. In the 1980s, he moved to Austin. His first solo album, Fair and Square, was released in 1988.

Gilmore's fans admire his fine tenor voice, which delivers expressive, pure, country singing.

Gilmore also had a small but memorable role in the 1998 movie The Big Lebowski as a bowler named Smokey, an aging, emotionally "fragile" pacifist threatened with a pistol by the main character's right-wing sidekick (John Goodman). He has also been a guest on Jay Leno, David Letterman, A Prairie Home Companion, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

jimmiegilmore.com  
Jimmy Dale Gilmore @ allmusic