Album Review: Panhandle Rambler by Joe Ely

Panhandle Rambler, the 14th studio album by veteran alt-country troubadour Joe Ely, is a thoughtful 12-song meditation on life in the Texas Panhandle. More dusty and windblown than anything he's done in years, he creates a world of wide-open vistas, bleak desert fringes, and the folks who call that square plot of Northern Texas and the Southern Oklahoma plains their own. A native of Lubbock, Ely has always had a heart full of the Lonestar State, and the eerie Southwestern flavor he presents here, while familiar to fans of his music, feels particularly robust and concentrated on this set of tunes.

Full Review >>

West Texas troubadour rocks the roadhouse. Amarillo’s Joe Ely can usually be relied upon to conjure up the poetry of the plains, his best songs being heart-of-the-matter tales that alternate between aching romance and a dose of bleak.. ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads.

Full Review >>

While a multitude of Joe Ely compositions evoke West Texas and the wide open spaces surrounding Lubbock where he learned his trade, Panhandle Rambler pulls up as a suite, an homage to that flat, dusty landscape and those who inhabit them. Having published a novel last fall, Reverb, and continuing to dig into his tape vault with a couple of commendable archive releases including a duet with Linda Ronstadt, he still found time to pen 10 of the 12 songs here. Given that the pair of covers rep Butch Hancock and Guy Clark, the staunch Austinite never stops keeping good company.

Full Review >>