If only the "more a legend than a band" that seems to surround
the Flatlanders were true and the "legend" were allowed to be what it is. But people keep dragging stuff out of the woodwork, and the three companeros who made that unit up --
Joe Ely,
Butch Hancock,
Jimmie Dale Gilmore -- have decided that being a band is a better thing and have reunited to record and tour. Man, people can't leave well enough alone. New West has dug up this old tape from
the Flatlanders' halcyon days, recorded at the dawn of the cosmic cowboy craze in Austin. What it proves first and foremost is that these guys should never have reunited (no one can blame them for wanting to get paid, but the myth was better before it became reunion flesh) and that their individual identities were formed even back then.
Gilmore is the high lonesome country songwriter,
Ely is the hillbilly rocker (his lead vocal on "Honky Tonk Blues" and "Settin' the Woods on Fire" would make
Hank Williams smile and then hoot in delight), and while
Hancock is clearly here, he doesn't sing lead on any of these tracks though he wrote a few of them. The fidelity on this thing is far from perfect, and it sounds like there are maybe 25 people in the audience tops. One way cool thing is you get to hear Steve Wesson's musical saw very well and mystic beat legend John X. Reed's killer guitar picking on Al Strehli's fine "So I'll Run." This is a back-porch singalong brought into the barroom. There are tunes by
Townes Van Zandt ("Waitin' Around to Die" and "Tecumseh Valley"), a slew of traditional tunes,
Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues,"
Bob Dylan's "Walkin' On Down the Line,"
Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home to Me," "Jole Blon," and more. It's loose, easy, and the vibe is relaxed and fun. The fidelity isn't great, but the performance is full of energy and verve. But it's not the second coming that New West label boss Peter Jesperson is making it out to be (and no doubt scads of alt-country Postcard 2 crazies as well). He states that
Ely thinks the most unique thing about the tape is that it exists at all. Exactly. No more, no less. ~ Thom Jurek