Today, GRAMMY Award-winning singer-songwriter Joe Ely has shared his new single “Driven to Drive,” the title track from his upcoming album which is out August 2 via Rack ‘Em Records / Thirty Tigers. Capturing the rollicking nature of life out on the road, “Driven to Drive” is an empowering anthem about the freedom of independence, dedicated to those who refuse to stay put in one place.
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“All my life I’ve been driven to drive, searching for the next thing I might find,” Ely said about the new single. “I chase songs and I catch one of them every once in a while. I first began working on this song around 1986, and finally finished it this year for the album Driven to Drive.”
“Driven to Drive” follows the release of “Odds of the Blues” featuring Bruce Springsteen, which garnered praise from American Songwriter, No Depression, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Stereogum and more. With twenty-three albums and several million miles under the West Texas native’s belt, Driven to Drive is Ely’s first road album, featuring a collection of songs inspired by his travels of different eras of his illustrious career which spans five decades. The new LP was self-produced by Ely and stitches together recordings over several decades at Spur Studios, his home recording facility outside of Austin. Movement in these songs is measured in many ways – there are pedal-to-the-metal anthems ginning down a straight strip of two-lane blacktop; a lazy meander on the Gulf blues highway; a tale of going on the lam on the Interstate; stories of getting from here to there, and songs about going nowhere at all.
Driven to Drive is the follow-up to Ely’s critically acclaimed 2022 album Flatland Lullaby, which the Associated Press hailed as a record “for anyone who has ever been a kid.” In addition to his revered solo work, he is one-third of the iconic Texas-based trio The Flatlanders along with Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. In 2021, the band released Treasure of Love, their first album in over 12 years that earned widespread support from press including Rolling Stone, American Songwriter and The Austin Chronicle, who raved in their five-star review, “Perfect in vision, voice, harmony – not to mention timing – Treasure of Love delivers quintessential Flatlanders.”
Over the course of his long and eclectic career – as a songwriter, performer, collaborator, and author – Joe Ely has altered and expanded the meaning of Texas music while taking those sounds and this place around the world. Driven to Drive is a reflection of this tireless roadwork, taking stock of the many trails he’s blazed.
Driven to Drive Tracklist:
1. Drivin’ Man
2. Odds of the Blues (feat. Bruce Springsteen)
3. For Your Love
4. Watchin’ Them Semis Roll
5. Didn’t We Robbie
6. Nashville Is A Catfish
7. Ride Motorcycle
8. San Antone Brawl
9. Slave to the Western Wind
10. Gulf Coast Blues
11. Driven to Drive
12. Jackhammer Rock
