Joe Ely's 'Bonfire of Roadmaps': A life on the road, in 50 feet of drawings

Joe's back pages, as displayed by the HRC

If you're looking to get up close and personal with Joe Ely this South by Southwest, may we suggest a spot you might not ordinarily expect to find the roadhouse rocker: the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. Oh, he won't be there in the flesh, we're sorry to say – this weekend, Ely is wending his way across Alberta with Lyle Lovett, Guy Clark, and John Hiatt – but his innermost thoughts and reflections will be, in the form of a new exhibition, "Joe Ely: Bonfire of Roadmaps." The show takes its title from a new book published by UT Press that collects artwork and words from journals that Ely has kept during his 44 years on the road. The entries are what Ely calls "snapshots of what was flying by, just out of reach, so to savor at a later date when the wheels stop rolling." Well, now the Ransom Center is giving everyone an opportunity to savor them, displayed as collages on large sheets of paper running a total of 50 feet. You may not have ever expected to see the day Joe Ely would be in a museum, but hey, if it's good enough for his Lubbock compadre Terry Allen …

"Joe Ely: Bonfire of Roadmaps" runs through April 2, Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm; Saturday-Sunday, noon-5pm, at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, 21st and Guadalupe, on the UT campus. For more information, visit www.hrc.utexas.edu.