Texas country band Flatland Cavalry are riding high off the strength of their great 2021 album Welcome To Countryland, and they're keeping the momentum going with their Far Out West Sessions, a video series that finds the band performing stripped-down renditions of songs from the album. Speaking about the series, lead singer Cleto Cordero said:
Up until the pandemic pulled us off the road, we as a band had spent the last five years relentlessly touring and being away from home; seeing the entire country firsthand through the windshield of a white van. All of those experiences led to what would form the collection of songs that made Welcome To Countryland. What better way to honor our time at home than to return to square one and share these songs and stories, broken down and unplugged, in the simple and stunning country land from where I belong? After the long and loud journey that has been our touring career, performing to seas of thousands of loud and rowdy crowds, what a breath of fresh and dusty Far West Texas air to break things down to their simplest elements and play a song or two for the crickets and the creosote– for the spirits of my ancestors!
Long before my mom and dad decided to settle in Midland, TX and raise their large family of seven children, our family’s story began out in their magnificent big backyard, the Trans-Pecos Region of Texas, specifically Redford and Presidio, TX. The opportunity to travel back to where my family’s humble origins begin in Far West Texas wasincredible. I haven't been out that way in over fifteen years or so and was deeply moved by the sentiment of “returning home.” Getting to sing songs in the country that shaped my family’s character was a spiritual experience.