{"id":7442,"date":"2025-12-16T11:51:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T11:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/country-pioneer-and-clash-collaborator-joe-ely-has-died-aged-78-152533\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T11:51:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T11:51:03","slug":"country-pioneer-and-clash-collaborator-joe-ely-has-died-aged-78-152533","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/country-pioneer-and-clash-collaborator-joe-ely-has-died-aged-78-152533\/","title":{"rendered":"Country pioneer and Clash collaborator Joe Ely has died aged 78"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

Joe Ely has died aged 78. A native Texan, the singer-songwriter was a critical force in the ‘progressive country’ scene that developed around Austin during the 1970s and ’80s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
Click here and subscribe to Uncut<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Joe Ely has died aged 78. A native Texan, the singer-songwriter was a critical force in the \u2018progressive country\u2019 scene that developed around Austin during the 1970s and \u201980s.<\/p>\n

Born on February 9, 1947 and raised in Lubbock, Ely first gained attention with The Flatlanders, who he formed with fellow local musicians, Jimmie Dale Gilmore\u00a0and\u00a0Butch Hancock in 1971.<\/p>\n

But their proto-Americana \u2013 a blend of country, folk, rock\u2019n\u2019roll and western swing \u2013 fell largely on deaf ears outside their home state of Texas.<\/p>\n

They broke up in a little over a year, with Ely going on to work for the Ringling Brothers Circus, before forming his own band.<\/p>\n

Ely\u2019s self-titled debut album came in 1977. That same year, he met The Clash in London, going on to play live with them \u2013 including one date in February 1980 at London\u2019s Hope & Anchor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a couple of days when we weren\u2019t doing anything, so we asked The Clash if they wanted to do some jamming,\u201d Ely told Uncut in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just started playing things we knew, like old Buddy Holly songs and rockabilly stuff. And Clash things too, like \u2018Jimmy Jazz\u2019 and \u2018I Fought The Law\u2019. You had two complete bands playing on this little tiny stage about the size of a mattress. It\u2019s real interesting, because it\u2019s got this reggae influence and then the sound of Lubbock, Texas, where I come from \u2013 kind of a western dustbowl feel, with steel guitar, accordion and country music from the \u201950s and \u201960s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ely also sang the Spanish backing vocals on \u201cShould I Stay Or Should I Go?\u201d and was further immortalised on \u201cIf Music Could Talk\u201d, from Sandinista!: \u201cWell there ain\u2019t no better blend than Joe Ely and his Texas Men\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ely continued to release solo albums, including his experimental albums Hi-Res and B4 84 \u2013 reportedly one of the first albums ever recorded on an Apple desktop computer.<\/p>\n

1995\u2019s\u00a0Letter to Laredo,\u00a0meanwhile, featured guest vocals from another long-term admirer, Bruce Springsteen.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Springsteen inducted Ely into American Music Honors \u2013 an annual event hosted by the\u00a0Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music -saying: \u201cHe\u2019s got that voice, the one I wished I had. It\u2019s got that slight southern country twang, it\u2019s got a hint of rockabilly. It\u2019s got the depth and emotion of Johnny Cash and it\u2019s as deeply authentic as his Texas roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been blessed to sing on his records and be onstage with Joe on occasion and the only thing I can say is: Thank God he wasn\u2019t born in New Jersey. I would have had a lot more of my work cut out for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ely reunited with The Flatlanders during the 1990s and 2000s. He also formed a short-lived supergroup called the Buzzin\u2019 Cousins with John Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam, John Prine and James McMurtry, recording \u201cSweet Suzanne\u201d for the 1992 Falling From Grace.<\/p>\n

His final studio album, Love And Freedom, was released in February this year.<\/p>\n

According to Variety<\/a>, the cause of death was complications from Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson\u2019s disease and pneumonia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post Country pioneer and Clash collaborator Joe Ely has died aged 78<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe Ely has died aged 78. A native Texan, the singer-songwriter was a critical force in the ‘progressive country’ scene that developed around Austin during the 1970s and ’80s. Click…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4790,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-joe-ely","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}