Joe Ely - Driven To Drive

2024 release.

Twenty-three albums and several million miles after he first hit the road, Joe Ely presents his first road album Driven to Drive. The collection of songs about and inspired by motorized travel was curated by Ely, who in the mid-1970s swept off the flat plains of the Llano Estacado of West Texas like a whirling tornado, fronting a legendary band that was too rock for country, and too country for rock. The wild, wide-open honky-tonk roadhouse sound of the Joe Ely Band gave their hometown of Lubbock it's first music hero since Buddy Holly.

The project stitches together recordings made at Spur Studios, his home recording facility outside of Austin, over several decades, assisted by musician/neighbors Joel Guzman on accordion, keyboardist Bill Guinn, singer Eddie Beethoven, and fiddler Richard Bowden. Last year at The Zone in Dripping Springs, Texas, Jeff Plankenhorn added his guitar to three tracks and engineer Pat Manske, who mastered Driven to Drive, added percussion.