Flatlanders: Wheels Of Fortune

The Flatlanders took 30 years between albums, and now can't seem to stop recording. When they first got together in the early '70s, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock experienced enough chicanery and disappointment in the music industry to last an entire career; they recorded one remarkable album that saw release only on 8-track, and then barely got distributed even in that form. (Although enough heard it that it became one of the many streams feeding into the country revival of years later.) Fortunately, all three men remained friends, and each went on to experience a fair amount of solo success before they recorded one song for The Horse Whisperer's soundtrack, then initiated a full-on reunion with the 2002 album Now Again. Good reviews, good sales, and even radio airplay (thanks to a $10,000 payment-for-a-donation-to-a-good-cause scheme initiated by radio personality Don Imus) suggested that the band was on to something, and now, a mere two years later, comes a follow-up. Like its predecessor, Wheels Of Fortune never achieves the ethereal quality of the group's first recordings (collected on the aptly titled More A Legend Than A Band), but it still assembles a sometimes stirring, always pleasant set of songs. Here, The Flatlanders sounds more like a band than ever, thanks in part to song-swapping. "Go To Sleep Alone" could have been another memorable slice of heartbreak had Gilmore held on to it. Handed off to Ely, it becomes a melancholy romp. Gilmore returns the favor by putting his own lonesome spin on unexpected material like "Whistle Blues." By the time the group trades off vocals on the album-closing "See The Way," it sounds like a better idea than ever that it's returned from legend to once again become a band.