The name derives from the vast open expanses of West Texas, but The Flatlanders have long been a beacon of influence towering over that state's alt-country music scene for close on fifty years. Even when inactive as a trio, the solo work of Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmour and Butch Hancock has travelled far and wide They may have to jostle with more familiar names like Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle for the ultimate public appeal, yet a strong argument can be made to equate the eminence of The Flatlanders, either in unison or solo, on a similar plateau.
Now with all three members at least at the three-quarter pole mark of life's long race, the time was right to get the band back together to record another album. TREASURE OF LOVE is a fifteen strong collection of mainly borrowed songs mingled with shades that the old song writing magic hasn't been dimmed by time. Mind you, both Ely and Gilmour have been active with new material over the last few years, but it was perhaps more pertinent that the album opens with a Hancock penned track 'Moanin' of the Midnight Train' to set the tone.
Elsewhere, the trio put a very Texas take on songs by legends such as Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Mickey Newberry, Leon Russell and The Everly Brothers. These songs may not always be the standards that every barroom warbler would bang out, but then again you would expect Ely, Gilmour and Hancock to be smarter. The common trait is that The Flatlanders' versions are a cut above the norm and ably enhanced by the pedal steel work of legendary Texas picker Lloyd Maines, who also lent a hand in the co-producing role.
It goes without saying that a Flatlanders album in 2021 is all about the here and now. It does nestle in neatly among the wave of artists making music at slightly different positions of their career to a band intermittently active for half a century. It is a gift from the heavens for old timers who haven't had new material for well over a decade and were last graced with unreleased seventies recordings in 2012. While TREASURE OF LOVE is not bestowed with much of the new song variety, its alluded freshness, prime class and seasoned panache is to be celebrated alongside rejoicing in the reunion of Ely, Gilmour and Hancock.
