Today, country veteran Joe Ely is announcing his new album Driven To Drive, out August 2. It follows 2022’s Flatland Lullaby, and the lead single “Odds Of The Blues” is out now, featuring none other than Bruce Springsteen.

“I got the idea for the song from hanging out at an all night after hours joint on the edge of east Lubbock called TV’s… there was always a dice game in the back room, the pool table had a bad lean, and the jukebox mainly played old blues songs,” Ely explained. “I wrote the song later when I put my studio together in Austin. I asked Bruce recently if he would like to sing with me on this song and he said he’d love to.”

“We’ve been long lost friends for a long time,” he continued. “One of my memories of us singing together was in Dublin, Ireland when we both got on stage with Jerry Lee Lewis and Shane MacGowan and sang ‘Great Balls Of Fire.’”

Driven To Drive was self-produced. Ely received helped from Joel Guzman on accordion, Bill Guinn on keyboards, Eddie Beethoven on vocals, Richard Bowden on fiddle, Jeff Plankenhorn on guitar, and Pat Manske on engineering and percussion.

“I’ve been traveling all my life in search of whatever I find,” Ely said. “Revisiting some of my studio files, I noticed there were a lot of songs I had written on the road about traveling. I had recorded them in my studio every time I got off the road. I compiled a selection of songs like that from different eras. That’s Driven To Drive.”

Watch the video for “Odds Of The Blues” below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Drivin’ Man”
02 “Odds Of The Blues” (Feat. Bruce Springsteen)
03 “For Your Love”
04 “Watchin’ Them Semis Roll”
05 “Didn’t We Robbie”
06 “Nashville Is A Catfish”
07 “Ride Motorcycle”
08 “San Antone Brawl”
09 “Slave To The Western Wind”
10 “Gulf Coast Blues”
11 “Driven To Drive”
12 “Jackhammer Rock”

Driven To Drive is out 8/2 via Rack ‘Em Records / Thirty Tigers.