The first time I heard “Deportee” was from The Highwaymen — Waylon, Willie, Cash, and Kristofferson harmonizing like the wind itself carried that Guthrie sorrow. Woody wrote it in 1948 after a plane crash near Los Gatos Canyon, where Mexican farm workers were dismissed in death the same way they were in life — called “deportees” instead of names.
Now, Ryan Bingham and Joe Ely have brought it back, and man… this version hurts right. You can hear every mile of border dust in Bingham’s voice, every torn heartland page in Ely’s. No polish, no pretense — just two Texas souls giving breath to Guthrie’s ghosts.
This isn’t nostalgia; it’s resurrection. A reminder that some songs ain’t meant to fade, because the truth they carry still rides shotgun in this country.
Some songs grow old. Deportee just keeps growing roots.
“Wonder why we settled here,” sings William Clark Green, “ with the rattlesnakes and the prickly pear and a water table two hundred feet down…”
The Panhandlers were ecstatic to be back in West Texas last night as they graced the stage at the Wagner Noel in Midland.
This band’s music centers around the land they all adopted as home.. a sentiment that rings in as West Texas the Best Texas.
Cleto Cordero Flatland Cavalry/ Panhandlers
Band member Cleto Cordero grew up in Midland and the hometown advantage was felt by all.. as his mother sat in the front row he sang the songs he’d written along the way from places like Lubbock and Marfa and Eastland. Songs about the oil and the cattle and the cotton,
I love the people here most of all and there is a culture that is a mixture of a cowboy and a farmer and a roughneck and everyone in between..
This was the second time I’ve seen this act live although I’ve seen each individually.
The singers of the band consist of Cleto, who heads up his band Flatland Cavalry, William Clark Green, Texas Country turned Rock Show, Josh Abbott of the JAB who holds the whole project together, and songwriter and performer John Baumann. Each brings talented musicians from their own groups together on one stage as they sing songs together in a style that is not usually heard in their own shows.. Each of them are accomplished songwriters and together they are unstoppable.
The ties they share stem from their college days as alumni of Texas Tech university and their love of songwriting.. specifically songs about Texas..
The band plays mainly original songs they’ve written although they can and will throw in covers by other notable Texas Musicians, including Guy Clark , and Terry Allen. They also recorded a song called “West Texas in My Eyes,” written by a personal friend of theirs and mine, Charlie Stout. And last night they covered the Highwaymen… Willie Nelson , Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings.
