THE FLATLANDERS 3 Texans share songs for album

The three recorded their first album in 1972 and then went their separate ways.
THE (ALLENTOWN, PA.) MORNING CALL
Singer-songwriters can be as protective of their tunes as parents are of their children, so the potential for friction is high when one singer-songwriter tackles the work of another.
However, longtime Texas buddies Butch Hancock, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore -- known collectively as pioneering alt-country band The Flatlanders -- were not deterred by the possibility of indoor fireworks when they decided to sing one another's songs for their new album, "Wheels of Fortune."
"We're very different from each other personality-wise," says Gilmore from his home outside Austin, "but we have some kind of shared artistic sensibility. And we share a sense of humor. Friendship can survive if there's humor.
"Joe and Butch and I are genuine fans of each other. There's a genuine respect," he adds. "If one of us comes up with something that falls flat, the other two will go, 'No, I don't think so.' We're not afraid to criticize each other and [by doing so] bring out the best in each other."
Gilmore, Ely and Hancock have been working together off and on as The Flatlanders since 1970. After only one album, "One More Road," which was just barely released in 1972 and only on eight-track, the three went their separate ways and eventually became successful singer-songwriters.
They reunited briefly at the Kerrville Folk Festival in the late '80s. And in 1990, Rounder Records released a revamped version of "One More Road" as "More a Legend Than a Band."
What happened next
In 1998, Gilmore, Ely and Hancock reunited to perform a track for "The Horse Whisperer" soundtrack album. Things went so well that they recorded a new album, 2000's "Now Again."
Not wanting a long gap between discs, The Flatlanders decided to dip into one another's catalogs.
"Joe is more prolific than me, and Butch is way more prolific than either of us," says Gilmore.
Still, four of the 14 songs on "Wheels" were written or co-written by Gilmore, and he sings on five others, including the title track.
"We recorded about 32 songs in three days, working eight hours a couple of days and four the next," says Gilmore of the sessions at Ely's studio in Austin. "We liked everything we put down.
"One of the hurdles was picking out which songs to record. The three of us have a very long history [and] we know so many songs in common. We ended up recording more or less what popped in our heads."
Gilmore says he was most excited about singing Hancock's "Once Followed by the Wind," a song about loss, abandonment and forgiveness. "Butch wrote that many, many years ago," says Gilmore. "He wrote that from a dream he had, and in the dream, I would be singing the song."
Well-liked song
Another exhilarating moment for Gilmore was applying his warm, warbly tenor to Ely's "Back to My Old Molehill," about the fallout from a lover's departure and the hardest-rocking "Wheels" track.
"While we were recording, Joe says to me, 'I have this new song,'" Gilmore recalls. "It was 'Molehill.' I couldn't believe it when I heard it. We've played it at a few gigs, and it's one of the ones that goes over best."
Although The Flatlanders didn't come together until 1970, Gilmore and Ely started working together in a band in the mid-'60s.
Gilmore, who, like Hancock, will mark his 59th birthday this year, says he "got into band playing" when he made his first record, noting, "Buddy Holly's father paid for the recording."
"I put together a band of people I was fans of, that I had heard and slightly knew," says Gilmore. One of those people was Ely. "Joe is a little younger than me (he turned 57 in February), but he played earlier than I did, in rock 'n' roll bands."
Gilmore also points out that although The Flatlanders have been typecast as alt-country, "in lots of ways we've drawn as much from rock 'n' roll and the blues."