Joe Ely, the Grammy Award-winning Texas country musician, died December 15 at the age of seventy-eight. Born February 9, 1947, he began playing and performing music as a child. Over his long professional career, he played everything from classic country and western to Mexican rancheras and honky-tonk stomps to rockabilly. He traveled the world sharing these sounds, including a concert at the 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
When I saw the news, it took me back to Chiari, Italy, in 1998. I was twenty-six and in an independent alt country rock band from New Hampshire ignominiously named Say ZuZu. Through a remarkable stroke of good luck, we had found modest success in an Italian subculture that loved regional American music. That fall, we toured through Italy as the opener for Joe Ely and his band.
The tour was made possible by an impresario of the scene named Carlo Carlini—a chain-smoking, beret-wearing romantic whose profitable car-alarm manufacturing business helped offset any (many?) losses from the tours he booked. Chip Taylor, the songwriter who wrote monster hits like “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning,” wrote a lovely homage to Carlini, which about sums it up. On this particular occasion, Carlini did some creative bookkeeping: Joe’s band was outfitted with a large tour bus, while we were boarded briefly at his car-alarm factory. We did not complain, however.
We knew Joe to be a legend of Texas music. Everybody we had ever met from Texas sang Joe’s praises. Every independent record store clerk I had ever met sang Joe’s praises. Everybody said that Joe played “real” Texas music. I had yet to embark on my career as an ethnomusicologist, so I hadn’t practiced my (pushing glasses up nose) “what do you mean by ‘real’?”
First day of the tour, we met Joe’s band, which included the legendary Jesse “Guitar” Taylor. Jesse asked where we were from. “New Hampshire? That’s a state, right?” Looking back, it was probably some very laconic humor, but I likely responded with some kind of endless Granite State historical trivia.
Joe was kind, polite, and never put on airs around us, despite being seen as an American music legend by these Italian audiences. Joe grew up in Lubbock, Texas—a city of fewer than 300,000, which has produced the likes of Buddy Holly, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Lloyd Maines, Natalie Maines, and Amanda Shires. As a young man, Joe had a stint as a circus hand for Ringling Bros. His first band, the Flatlanders (with Gilmore and Hancock), should have made him a household name in country music, but the music industry can be ignorant when it comes to talent.
One night, our van got clipped by another car. It took a while to sort out. I went to bed. Two of my bandmates were invited to hang out with Joe. I so wish I had joined them, as Joe regaled them with tales of playing with the Clash when they first came to the United States, playing in high school gymnasiums in Texas. Joe told them of how he ended up singing the Spanish backing vocals on the Clash’s signature song, “Should I Stay or Should I Go.”
At the end of the tour, we played a venue in Chiari called Sesto Calende. This was in Carlo Carlini’s hometown. Watching Joe’s band was an education. These were masters at their craft, tested by decades on the road, playing with equal parts nuance and bravado, playing originals and pounding their way through the best version of Buddy Holly’s “Rave On” that I’ve ever heard. There’s a grainy video of Joe’s band playing “Gallo del Cielo” in Chiari in 1998 that reminds me of how it felt to be standing across the Atlantic, immersed in the sounds and stories of the American Southwest.
Thank you, Joe Ely, for your electric music, your originality, and your generous spirit.
Cliff Murphy is the director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
