Inspired by a rancher who happened to take a detour on his way to the Stockyards one day. He caught martinez and Blakely playing their first gig in a new market, to an empty room. They unplugged and sat on bar stools next to him. “He listened to every word,” martinez recalls. Eventually, people started popping their heads in. By the end of the night, the place was packed. The cattleman stayed till the very end, then told them, “I should have been in Fort Worth by now, but life isn’t always about the destination; it’s about the journey.” They wrote the song that night, and recorded it for their 1998 album, SPINNING OUR
WHEELS. Martinez was driving to Austin to select album artwork when his own journey nearly came to a premature end. Luckily, his collision with a U-turning 18-wheeler left him mainly with bruises — and a temporary steering-wheel imprint on his chest. “Everything that happened from that point was a little on the magical, spiritual side,” he recalls. The first vehicle on the scene happened to be a friend, who called paramedics and rescued martinez’s music gear. When martinez found a replacement vehicle, serendipitously from a recording software salesman in his own neighborhood, he got in and turned the key. The radio, already tuned to a local Americana station, was playing “The Ride.”
credits
from Purgatory Road,
released September 15, 2010
Written By: john Arthur martienz & Mike Blakely
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