The Joe Ely Band 5/21/10

Car 2 Go hosted the free concert "Rock, Register, and Drive" in Republic Square Park in downtown Austin, and if you aren't familiar with Car 2 Go, it's worth checking out.

Kinda like community bikes, teeny 2-seater cars can be reserved or spontaneously used around town with your Car 2 Go card..  a shared, pre-fueled, on-demand private car at your beck and call as you need it.  If you're in the Austin area, you must've already seen these little blue and white cars scooting around...

It only makes sense that a travelin' man like Joe Ely would headline a promotional concert for a mode of transportation-- except his music embodies the travel of trains and trucks and broken hearts, grinding gears and stolen moments.  It's probably silly to point out the common knowledge that Joe Ely is a living Texas music legend, but maybe not silly to highlight the range of artists he has collaborated with over the decades and the range of his accomplishments.  In addition to forming the both-mythic-and-real Flatlanders in the early 1970's with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock and his own Joe Ely Band, he has worked with: Townes Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Uncle Tupelo, Los Super Seven, Joel Guzman, Rosie Flores, Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Guy Clark, Linda Ronstadt..    with John Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam, John Prine, and James McMurtry in the brief supergroup Buzzin Cousins..   has recorded well over 20 albums..   in 2007 he launched his own label Rack 'Em Records AND published Bonfire of Roadmaps, a collection of road journal entries that are not quite songs, poems, or prose..  and recently took relative newcomer dusty songwriter/guitarist Ryan Bingham under his wing, touring with this fellow Texan and at times sharing the stage..

Joe Ely's music is an original blend of country rock and blues that weaves in folk, Cajun, and Tejano-- almost always coupled with heartfelt lyrics about half-broken characters, gruff travel, haunting regrets, and the freedom of letting it all go.  Ever wonder what "Americana" music is?  Joe Ely would be it...

This was certainly a greatest hits type of night-- Ely had but an hour to perform-- and it was straight up country rock and blues-- no accordion tonight!  The sound was turned up and up until The Capitol Building on Congress Avenue knew Joe Ely was in town.  Among the gems on the setlist were "Streets of Sin",  "Me and Billy the Kid", "Boxcars", Robert Earl Keen's  "Road Goes On Forever", a number about what Joe called "a little suburb of Austin to the north" ("Dallas"), and an extended "Letter to LA"-- which included a superb double guitar solo with David Grissom-- completely clean and solid playing all around by Ely and the band. Pure blues-country-rock Texan mojo.  And if you know Ely's lyrics and writings, pure poetry-- Joe Ely is one fine writer.

The Joe Ely Band's support for Car 2 Go is admirable.  It's a progressive public transportation experiment in a car-crazy city.  I can't imagine Joe Ely in one of those little blue and white cars-- I envision him in a 1978 Ford pickup--BUT-- he has been one to embrace new technology and systems for quite some time.  Some of his road journals were sloppily typed (due to potholes) on a Radio Shack computer in the back of a van, and his own website proudly displays "Official Homepage of Joe Ely: Online since 1983".  (Were YOU online in 1983??)  These little fuel-efficient Car 2 Go cars that you can drive and abandon at will just might be onto something.  They aren't meant for travlin cross-country, but they sure embrace the spirit of spontaneous movement and letting go.  As Ely's song goes: 

So lay it on thick if you lay it on at all
If you're gonna do the job, do it right
If you gotta hit the road, leave your burdens behind you
The Lord of the Highway travels light.....