The Panhandlers: Where Cotton is King
Josh Abbott, John Baumann, William Clark Green and Cleto Cordero, AKA The Panhandlers are out to prove that lightning can, actually, strike twice with their upcoming second album. Ahead of this anticipated release, on September 2nd they put out the first single “Where Cotton Is King.”
Photo by Charlie Stout
“This is actually the very first song we tried writing with all four of us, back on our first writing trip to Marfa in 2019” said Abbott. “We even recorded it for the first album but it just wasn’t quite right. I’m glad we’re all mature enough to know when to pull a song. And because we did, we were able to finish it in 2021 the way it deserved.”
The song, like the rest of their music, was inspired by the unique landscape and tenacious inhabitants of West Texas. Laden with pedal steel, fiddle, banjo, dobro, guitar and percussion, Where Cotton Is King” pays homage to the Texas country music of the past by some of the genre’s current vanguards. Their last record told vignettes of West Texas life, and their new music is no different. This track, Cordero said, is “about the plight of a generational farmer who breaks his back day in and out to render his portion to ‘The Lord of the Land: King Cotton’.”
The song itself can be compared in large part to a dirge, both musically and lyrically. Chronicling the hard life of a cotton farmer: planting, tilling, sweating, toiling, hoping and praying for a big crop to come in. All the while the farmer knows that lack of rain, a harsh winter, boll weevils, the man from the bank, as well as numerous other factors can kill his dreams in an instant and bury them in the same dirt as the cotton that he is trying to bring out of the ground. Yet he pushes on, betting against the odds that this year will be The One. There are no guarantees.
The minimalist guitar and banjo intro draws the lonely, flat, wide and windswept prairie farmland that trails off into the horizon in your mind’s eye. The stark description sung by Josh Abbott as the chronicler refers to their life as “serving out my sentence on the plains, where Cotton is King” is telling! Especially for those born into this way of life where they are told from a young age that it’s their responsibility to keep the farm in the family and that there is no other way of life.
Overall, it’s a compelling first single and leaves me wanting to hear more. A LOT more!