Growing up in northeast Ohio in the ’90s, I got a very specific idea about what country music was — it was songs like Billy Ray Cyrus’s megahit “Achy Breaky Heart.” Even when the local public radio station, WKSU (which would go on to spin off the streaming radio site Folk Alley) played artists like Emmylou Harris and Iris DeMent — what would come to be called Americana — it labeled them as “folk.” Country was a dirty word to the kind of audience that listened to public radio where I grew up.
When I got to Austin for grad school in my mid-20s, I thought I didn’t like country music. That would change during the 18 eye-opening months I spent in the Live Music Capitol of the World. And it changed at a very specific moment, when I saw Joe Ely on the last day of the 2004 Austin City Limits Festival.
That festival had a loaded lineup: I saw Elvis Costello (on Friday afternoon, at 4 o’clock), Patty Griffin, and Sheryl Crow. Joe’s set was, if I remember correctly, at around 5pm on Sunday, when that hot Texas sun was still beating down hard in early October. I hadn’t heard of him, and I wasn’t planning to see him, but a fellow concertgoer said he was something of a local legend and I should catch his set.
I’m glad I did. For someone who flew under the radar of mainstream popularity, Joe was an incredible live performer. Having grown up in Lubbock, his music was country, but it was country with a strong rock edge to it. His hard-rocking intensity made fans of The Clash, who he opened for, and Bruce Springsteen, among others. He was a pillar of Austin’s musical community for decades, both loved and respected by his fellow artists.
Watch Joe Ely perform “Settle for Love” live at Farm Aid 1990 on YouTube:
Joe lived in an incredible American life, growing up in West Texas under the sway of Buddy Holly. After his first recording with the Flatlanders — his band with fellow singer-songwriters Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock, who are sort of the Big Star of Americana — went nowhere, he took off to join the circus. Later, he would open for the Clash, and that’s him singing backing vocals on “Should I Stay Or Should I Go.”
I knew Joe had been dealing with health problems, but I didn’t realize how serious they were until his passing on Dec. 15. He’d left Austin for Taos, New Mexico, another place with a vibrant artistic scene, and he had withdrawn from public view. He passed from complications of Parkinson’s, Lewy Body Dementia, and pneumonia.
A whole generation of artists, from Jesse Dayton to Joe Pug, counted Ely as a seminal influence and as a mentor. He was deeply respected by folks like Bruce Springsteen. I saw him twice after that fateful afternoon in Austin, once with Alejandro Escovedo, and the last time he came to our area, playing with The Flatlanders. I got to meet him after the latter show; it was a brief encounter, but I found Joe to be as pleasant and down-to-earth as his reputation.
If you have an interest in outlaw country or Americana, and if you haven’t heard Joe’s music, you need to change that right away. I recommend starting with his album Honky Tonk Masquerade. Go listen to it — you’ll thank me later. And once you’ve heard that, you can look into the many leading lights of alternative country and Americana he influenced, like Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle, Robert Earl Keen, Lyle Lovett, and James McMurtry.
Stream Honky Tonk Masquerade by Joe Ely on Spotify:
