It’s become painfully obvious that we’re running FAR too many In Memoriam columns on Pencil Storm, and even more painfully obvious that the Universe of Rock & Roll has reached a point where that trend is not about to slow down anytime soon. So, my In Memoriam approach from here on out is gonna be personalized stories. You can read all about the obituary facts & figures ANYWHERE on this InterWideWeb; this is my Joe Ely tribute.
I first learned about Joe Ely and his music - as I did so many other things - because of my love for The Clash from 1977 on. So in 1979, when I read in the New Musical Express that some Texas singer-songwriter named Joe Ely & his band were gonna open shows for a Clash tour of England I was confused. Double bills of unknown country-rock bands from Lubbock and limey punk-rockers just didn’t happen back then. Bands stayed in their lanes. When Joe Strummer explained that he couldn’t get any English acts to endure the abuse (spitting, stage-invasions & otherwise) from Clash fans to get a 45-minute set done I had to try and figure out how some Lone Star guys displayed the bad-assery necessary to weather that punk-rock storm.
It was the start to a Joe Ely love affair that lasts to this day, 46 years later.
It was pretty easy to find Joe Ely music in the used record stores of Columbus, Ohio in those long-lost 1979 days. I got the 1977 self-titled debut record and 1978’s Honky Tonk Masquerade for, I think, 50 cents and a dollar respectively and I was off to the races. I think I had already seen Ely and his crackshot live band at Stache’s (capacity 85 people) by the time 1980’s Live Shots was released. Then 1981’s Musta Notta Gotta Lotta and various CD’s followed in the late 80’s when that medium got invented.
And as good as those albums are - and make no mistake, they’re REALLY good - Joe Ely and his band live were a sight & sound to behold. Long-haired, dressed-straight-out-of-a-Texas-honky-tonk, bashing out no-nonsense 3-minute rockers and ballads that could/would break your heart, unless you were a KISS fan or some jive-bullshit synth-pop late 70’s/early 80’s hipster. I continued seeing Ely all through the 90’s in places like Cincinnati's Bogart’s and the Columbus Agora after they outgrew Stache’s and they were never less than a superlative spark-spitting rock & roll assemblage. And they toured RELENTLESSLY. I bet I saw them at least 8 times in 10 years.
But hell, I could talk-talk-talk and bore you like this all day long; here’s five songs you’re gonna wanna hear, and believe me, you need to delve deeper into Joe Ely music; you will not be disappointed.
Joe, I’m seriously going to miss you. Rest In Peace.
“Musta Notta Gotta Lotta” with a later (equally if not MORE spark-spitting live band) / Bobby Keys on sax
I found a lot of live versions of this, but I had to go back to the original as I first heard it in 1979. A great Jimmie Dale Gilmore song from Joe.
Ricki C. is 73 years old and has two dresser drawers full of black rock & roll t-shirts, which he wears incessantly. He also has a hand-tooled leather hippie belt from 1972 that still fits. He has congestive heart failure and prostate cancer and KNOWS that all this rock & roll nonsense has to stop someday.
But not yet.
Ricki has also recently decided that he is going to outlive Donald Trump, so that he can visit Florida or New York or wherever to piss on Trump’s grave.
bonus video, 49 GREAT minutes of Joe & his bands throughout the years & decades of Austin City Limits; settle in and enjoy.