ALBUQUERQUE — Texas singer-songwriter Joe Ely has been in love with trains his whole life. In 1977, he recorded one of the great train songs -- "Boxcars," which his longtime pal Butch Hancock wrote -- laying out exactly what had hooked him over the course of countless rides in open freight cars journeying to and from his hometown of Lubbock.
If you ever heard the whistle on a fast freight train
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, October 02, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 2 inches; 60 words Type of Material: Correction
Moving Music Festival: An article in Tuesday's Calendar about a musical train tour of the Southwest, dubbed North America's Moving Music Festival, quoted Danish passenger Jens Koch as saying that such a trip would be more difficult in Europe because it "would require approval of several governments." It should have read that it "would require approval of several rail companies."
Beatin' out a beautiful tune
If you ever seen the cold blue railroad tracks
Shinin' by the light of the moon
If you ever felt a locomotive shake the ground
I know you don't have to be told
Why I'm going down to the railroad tracks
And watch them lonesome boxcars roll
"My grandfather worked the Rock Island line, and my father worked on the Santa Fe line," Ely, 62, said Sunday night following his performance at Burt's Tiki Lounge, about two blocks from the Albuquerque train station. Ely was accompanied by fellow singer-songwriters Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, his partners in the revered Texas trio the Flatlanders, on a bill they shared with California roots-rocker Dave Alvin.
"I grew up with trains," Ely said. "I couldn't miss this."
Ely had joined up Sunday afternoon with Gilmore, Hancock and Alvin for an opening-night show that's part of a five-day train trek through the Southwestern U.S., part of what organizers like to call North America's Moving Music Festival.
It got rolling a day earlier, out of Los Angeles' Union Station, where about 70 roots-music enthusiasts had boarded four restored 50- and 60-year-old coaches on a train dubbed the Kachina Express, a landlubbers' alternative to the numerous music cruises that have proliferated in the last decade.
Ely, in fact, did miss the first leg of the trip from L.A. to Albuquerque on the old Santa Fe route that roughly parallels Route 66. He'd had a gig in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and couldn't make it to L.A. by departure time. So he caught up with the group in Albuquerque, much to the delight of the train travelers who took over Burt's Tiki Lounge for a private performance.
"Because these guys haven't been that commercially successful, it's hard to explain just how iconic they are," said Peter O'Brien, a retired physical education teacher who came from London to be on board.
Others drove or flew to L.A. from as far away as Vermont, Maryland, Florida, England, Ireland, Scotland and Finland, only too happy to endure last weekend's heat wave to travel with these champions of Americana music.
