![]() ![]() “It’s basically a little lullaby album that I did for her when she was 2 or 3 years old,” says Ely. It’s the kind of passion project that could have only ever come into focus when the initial target audience extended no farther than the man’s nearest and dearest - namely, his daughter Marie. So go ahead and exhale if for a moment there you were thinking it was going to be, say, some kind of previously never-even-heard -about, full-on collaboration with the Clash, or even another treasure chest full of long-lost Flatlanders gold along the lines of 2012’s The Odessa Tapes. That said, though, Flatland Lullaby really is a gift objectively more special by far than anything else released from Ely’s archives to date, because this one comes straight off the very top shelf of the family reserve. Now, to clarify: Flatland Lullaby is not necessarily what anyone, least of all Ely himself, would ever call a “big" record. And this October - the same month as Ely’s induction into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame - he’s finally sharing what might well be the mother of them all: Flatland Lullaby. But happily for fans the world over, ever since 2007, Ely’s made a concerted effort to release a steady stream of pearls from that vault on his own Rack ’Em Records label. There are also piles of live recordings spanning his entire career, scores (if not hundreds) of stray songs in all stages of completion, and even entire albums never released in any version - many back-burnered, perhaps, for no better reason other than Ely’s insatiable creative wanderlust, his attention known to turn on a dime every time a new idea or sound flitted across his mind. Joe Ely has released a whole lotta records over the last 50 years, but not even half as many albums as he’s made. By the renowned Texas roots rock and Americana legend’s own reckoning, nearly every album in his official catalog has at least one alternate version - sometimes even his favorite version - tucked away in his vault. ![]()
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