Props for Joe Ely

Texas Head '77: Joe Spins Stories with Ten Gallon Attitude.

Been listening to Joe Ely again lately. Seems I get a hankerin' for the Texas balladeer's music every so often. Burned a "favorites" CD for the car with West Texas Waltz, Cool Rockin' Loretta, Dallas Froam a DC9, Row of Dominoes, She Never Spoke Spanish to Me, Gallo de Cielo and a couple others.

What made me think of him this time was that he appears briefly in the Joe Strummer documentary that's out now. I guess I didn't know that he and Strummer were good friends. Wow, talk about uncommon bedfellows: A London punk and a West Texas cowboy.

Yep, Joe's the Real Lone Star Deal.

(Not to mention, he's launched the careers of guys like Charlie Sexton, Will Sexton and David Grissom, all of whom played lead guitar in his band at one time or other).

Joe Ely Homepage

PS: Forgot to mention that with my band The Derangers I opened for Ely in '97 at Mama Kin. Got to hang with him back stage and got his autograph. The best part was, we were to play first of three, but the middle band didn't show up, so we got bumped up to right before Ely. By the time we went on, like ten-ish, the place had filled up with Ely fans, who really dug what we were doing. We were at the top of our game by that point, so that was a good night for us. And Ely and his band were amazing, of course.