Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch

Joe Ely awakes from a dream of riding the Pecos with Lilly Langtry on a dirt-bike Harley with dual rifle scabbards and gunning down Judge Roy Bean. As he focuses his waking senses, Ely once again is surrounded by the womb-like motions and sounds of a moving rented tour bus; or is it a jet plane, or the backseat of a taxi, or a freight boxcar? the place is always different but the motion is familiar to Joe Ely, always about to be born into a new adventure. Ely shares kaleidoscopic recollections of his adventures on the road in the songs from his new album Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch. And like the sure return of a comet, Joe Ely hits the road early 2007 with fellow travelers Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, and John Hiatt. For more than thirty years, Ely has performed in thousands of cities in scores of countries, has crossed hundreds of borders, frequently with incident and travails beyond his control. He has stowed away on freight trains and ferries, hitchhiked with poets, hoboes, outlaws and hard-luck saints, and he has cruised in limos and cabs