The Panhandlers Sketch Out the Heartbeat of West Texas in “Where Cotton Is King”

To say the four members of The Panhandlers have been busy since the release of their debut album in 2020 would be an understatement. Between releasing a handful of stacked albums since then (John Baumann’s Country Shade, WCG’s Baker Hotel, Flatland Cavalry’s Welcome to Countryland, and Josh Abbott Band’s The Highway Kind and recent EP Josh Abbott Band and Friends: Vol. I), touring extensively, and Flatland’s Opry debut, Cleto Cordero, John Baumann, William Clark Green, and Josh Abbott have each been making waves in their own right.

Deeply embedded in the landscape of West Texas, their newest single “Where Cotton Is King” follows in the footsteps of their self-titled debut with vivid imagery and a sense of rugged isolation. The fiddle, drums, and guitar meld together to give the track a heartbeat, much like the one that forms a central thread in the fabric of daily life described in the song:

“Coffee black before the sun

a whole lotta work that’s gotta get done

load ‘em in the ground  and hope that hell don’t come

right now it don’t look like much

just lonely roads and mounds of dust

but sleeping underneath is the seed of boom or bust”

Penned by the group’s four members, who worked with Bruce Robison on the track’s production, “Where Cotton Is King” is a solid starting point for what’s to come from The Panhandlers in the near future. Instagram posts and comments suggest that there’s a new album on the way, and if it’s anywhere near as good as their first one, this will be a project you don’t want to miss.

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