Cowboys & Indians / October 2009 / Playlist: five classic Joe Ely tracks

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Playlist: five classic Joe Ely tracks

Joe Ely guesses he's written between 850 and 1,000 songs and performed hundreds more, so consider the following simply an excellent starter kit.

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Joe Ely guesses he's written between 850 and 1,000 songs and performed hundreds more, so consider the following playlist simply an excellent starter kit. Listen or download these five classics, and check out video of Joe and the Flatlanders performing some of their greats.

Homeland Refugee
The Flatlanders
Hills and Valleys (2009)
This "classic" Flatlanders track — Texas Music called it "the best song ever recorded under the Flatlanders name" — has a modern theme. "Our parents told us about the Depression and the Dust Bowl and everybody going to California to look for work," says Ely. "We wrote a song about the mortgage foreclosures and all the people streaming out of" California back to Texas.

Up on the Ridge
Joe Ely & Joel Guzman
Live Cactus! (2008)
"I like to paint a picture where you can hear that wind blowing through the cactus, and Joel really translates my words into a Technicolor picture," says Ely of this melancholy guitar-accordion border-fable duet with the storied Guzman.

South Wind of Summer
The Flatlanders
The Horse Whisperer soundtrack (1998)
The lush Americana ode to changing seasons is "the first song the Flatlanders ever wrote together," says Ely. "We'd always written our own songs before. That one has had a lot staying power, and we still play it live."

Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
Los Super Seven
Los Super Seven (1998)
"One of my favorite Woody Guthrie songs. When Los Super Seven came up, we were talking about songs that had to do with the border, and it's about the only song in English on the record. That record won a Grammy, which was a shock to us all. We didn't think it fit in to any category. They called it a Tejano record."(Listen to a clip of it or download the album here).

Me and Billy the Kid
Joe Ely
Lord of the Highway (1987)
Written in his car after a visit to the Billy the Kid Museum in Hico, Texas, the rocking concert favorite — recently covered by Pat Green — had one early critic. "When I wrote it, I played it for my wife and she said, 'That is terrible. You're not gonna play it onstage, are you?' But it's still one of those songs that people always want to hear."

• Also on C&I: Joe Ely tells stories from his vagabonding music career

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