Joe Ely and I spent our birthdays together for the first time on February 9, 1996. It was my 35th. Joe turned 49 that day.
The big difference between this night and the many birthdays we would spend together later is that we did not know each other then. Joe rocked the stage at Nashville’s 328 Performance Hall, and thanks to the gift of a generous co-worker at Capitol Records, I was in the first row. I had only lived in Nashville for six months that February. Although I worked in country radio in my hometown of Milwaukee for five years prior, our station didn’t play the likes of Joe Ely.
On the stage, just a few feet from me, Joe growled into the microphone, dressed like a turquoise-studded Buddy Holly and commanding the stage like Bruce Springsteen on steroids. He shook his shaggy black hair and sweat spattered on us like sea spray. Blistering rock n’ roll—"Musta Notta Gotta Lotta,” “Cool Rockin’ Loretta,” “The Road Goes on Forever,” “Me and Billy the Kid,” “All Just to Get to You.” We rocked and rolled for nearly three hours.
The next morning, I went to Tower Records on West End Avenue and bought every Joe Ely album they had in stock. All eleven of them.
Earle Rewell Ely was born February 9, 1947, in Amarillo, TX. His family moved to Lubbock in the 50s. Joe learned to play electric guitar and fronted rock n’ roll bands throughout his teenage years. He dropped out of high school, moved to Austin, joined a theatre group and traveled through Europe before coming back to Lubbock in 1972 to form a band called the Flatlanders with his childhood friends Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock. The summer of 1974, Joe joined the Ringling Brothers circus, taking care of elephants and horses.
Then he returned to Lubbock again, this time making music with Lloyd Maines and Jesse Taylor. Joe signed to MCA Records in 1977 and toured relentlessly—most famously with The Clash, Tom Petty and the Rolling Stones. He continued to record for more than fifty years, experimenting with digital technology and AI long before the rest of the industry.
The Gavin Report’s 1995 debut Americana Chart was built for Joe Ely. Too rock for mainstream country, too much Texas twang for Triple A, Joe was at the core of the new radio format. “Joe Ely was, if not the first, certainly the second words out of my mouth when I was researching to build the Americana panel,” says Rob Bleetstein, first Americana chart editor of The Gavin Report. “I asked everyone if they knew Joe Ely. He was an absolute star of the format and one of the five artists we put on our first cover. He was not only a Texas singer-songwriter, he was also pure rock n’ roll. Nobody put on a live show like Joe Ely.”
During SXSW 1998, the Elys hosted a party to celebrate the release of The Horse Whisperer soundtrack, an Americana accompaniment to the Robert Redford film. The Flatlanders sang “South Wind of Summer” in Joe’s studio outside Austin. Then we all gathered under a 300-year-old oak tree, an expansive canopy of branches strung with pretty lights. I met the ethereal Sharon Ely for the first time that night. She with the striking long braids, sweet smile, lilting laugh and golden aura.
The Elys and I have many people in common and our friendship grew organically into one of the most meaningful relationships of my adult life. It was devastating when Joe died on Monday December 15th from complications of Lewy Body dementia, Parkinson’s and pneumonia. His beloved wife Sharon and daughter Marie held a candlelight vigil at his bedside in their home in Taos, New Mexico and loved him out of this world and into the next.
My brain has been a time machine this last week. I’m bouncing around my head cataloging memories of our decades together: The time the Flatlanders were guest hosts for a week on a television show I produced. The years-long songwriter tour Joe did with Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt. Joe telling jokes in the control room at Cedar Creek Studios after laying down “Dublin Blues” for his track on our Guy Clark tribute. Guy’s 70th birthday concert at the Long Center where Joe performed with many of our friends. Countless meals together in Austin at Hyde Park Grill, Maudie’s Tex Mex, Perry’s Steakhouse. Late nights at Kerbey Lane Café after Saxon Pub gigs. Our shared birthday celebrations at Justine’s and Enoteca and around the Ely dining room table. Bowls and bowls and bowls of Sharon’s delicious posole around bonfires under the majestic oak tree. Guy’s last birthday party at Jim McGuire’s studio. Guy’s memorial trip to Santa Fe. The unveiling of a Terry Allen sculpture at Laguna Gloria. Joe’s 70th birthday concert at the Paramount on my 56th birthday. Joe’s induction into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, where I sat in the front row with my girlfriends and sobbed. Too many sweet memories to count.
On our birthday in 2020, a small group of us watched the Oscars at the Ely’s house. We were too afraid to go out in public after hearing about a strange virus that was making our musician friends sick. The following year, we sat around the bonfire six feet from each other wearing masks. During the pandemic, from mid-March 2020 through spring 2021, Joe, Sharon, Terry and Jo Harvey Allen, Denise McLemore, Connie Nelson and I met every Sunday night at 8pm on Zoom. We held each other up during those scary times.
I saw Joe one month before he died. I showed up at their house in Austin the morning of November 15 with cranberry orange scones for Joe and a quiche for Sharon to heat up later. Joe’s diagnosis had rattled all of us, but that day, oh, he looked good. Joe walked with a cane, but he was getting around the house. Joe knew me. We laughed. We told stories. Joe said he was “feeling pretty good, considering.” When it was time for me to leave, Joe and Sharon walked me to the door. I hugged them goodbye. We made a loose plan to meet back in Austin for our birthdays on February 9, 2026—Joe’s 79th, my 65th. And I really believed it would happen.
On stage, Joe was a dynamic performer. His body of work is exquisite. I think Joe could have been a superstar if he wanted it. But that wasn’t his style. Joe Ely was an artist and his art was paramount. He carried himself like a Texas buddha—kind, grounded, compassionate, peaceful, playful. And he did not suffer fools. His quick wit sailed over a lot of heads, and that was always fun to witness. It didn’t take him long to get a read on people, and he was always right. My life is exceedingly richer for knowing him.
Whether we want to or not, we must go where the future takes us. This new world will be bluer than blue without Joe Ely in it. My birthday brother will live on in his music and in my heart, but February 9th will never be the same.