Joe Ely & Joel Guzman @ Dan's

I've said it before, and I'll surely say it again, but Dan's Silverleaf here in Denton, TX is the king of clubs. Last night, in front of a crowd probably just shy of 200, Joe Ely stepped on the small stage to loud applause from a very mixed crowd. They quieted immediately on Ely's first chords and a toothy smile. He opened with Butch Hancock's "Livin' on a Dry Land Farm" and played two more by himself. Then, out of nowhere, he said that he had invited a friend to come, a Tejano legend, and he welcomed Joel Guzman! I know they've played together many, many times before, and I don't know whether or not they'll be playing together at Ely's next date, but he was not advertised and I felt privileged to have the two of them standing 20 feet away. They played a few of Ely's big songs, though not many ("Me and Billy the Kid" went over like gangbusters), but Ely's soulful voice and rhythm guitar mixed with Guzman's stunningly subtle bandeon brought a wellspring of emotion from the crowd. His populist politics were met with mostly positive responses (although his desire to drag the president by the arm and make him work on a dryland farm, while eliciting big cheers from the mostly liberal college crowd, did cause the straw-hatted, slim-eyed contingent, who appeared to have come straight from their own dryland farms, to go out to the patio in frustration), and he was not shy in expressing them. Then, they played "Gallo del Cielo," one of my all time favorite songs. When Carlos Saragosa feared the crack that ran along the rooster's beak, I damn near cried. Two encores and six songs later (including a fantastic version of Townes' "White Freighliner Blues," that the whole audience sang along to) and they left the stage. It was one of the finest shows I've ever been lucky enough to see.

After the show ended, my friends and I got another drink and stood around, taking it in, gushing over what we'd just seen. Ely and Guzman had come out into the bar and were having a drink themselves, talking to fans, signing autographs, thanking them for coming, etc. I am not one to go up and speak to a performer. Reverence isn't my bag and I don't feel it does any good for anybody to kiss the feet of artists. However, as we were standing around talking, Guzman comes over and strikes a conversation with us! This is not something I expect from people in general, let alone Grammy Award-winning artists. We thanked him for the great time, but he wasn't there for adulation. After we got the thank yous out of the way, we sat and talked about music, the songs they played and, probably most importantly, the lack of difference between Country and Tejano music. "It's all Texas," he said. He's absolutely right, but it goes way beyond Texas. Folk music is folk music. Whether it comes from Texas, the Mississippi Delta, or Belarus, the differences are scant and they all deal with similar emotions and tribulations, no matter the instruments played or the races and nationalities of those playing the instruments.