This one really hurt.

Joe Ely has died at 78. 

He and his band played one of the 10 best rock shows I’ve ever seen, at J.B. Scotts, May 9, 1981, fronting a great band co-starring guitarist Jesse Taylor, pedal steel player Lloyd Maines (whose future Chicks singing daughter Natalie was then seven years old), accordion player Ponty Bone (best rock and roll name you’ll hear this week) and drummer, bassist, keyboard and saxophone players – wait, was that Bobby Keys?

That was the year after Ely toured Europe and the US with the Clash. In March 1988, Ely and a different band, co-starring guitar hot rod David Grissom, rocked Tiger’s in Clifton Park, a show almost as good as the J.B. Scott’s explosion.

Joe Ely at Tiger’s; March 15, 1988

A 1960s-style muscle car of a road-dog, loud-pedal rock and roll star, Ely saw Elvis play on a flatbed truck at a dusty Texas stock show as a kid and was never the same. He formed the Flatlanders with Lubbock pals Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock; ahead of their time in welding rock swing and swagger to cozy folk pathos; what’s now called Americana. They released their debut album on eight-track in 1973; when it didn’t sell, they split into solo careers but also played together on and off for decades, sharing songs and shows, including several at The Egg.

As singer, songwriter and guitarist, Ely thundered across America, and the world, with powerhouse bands. 

Hitting at the dawn of punk and touring with the Clash encouraged Ely to keep things simple and pack a punch. He followed this roadmap to onstage power by incorporating singer-songwriter depth and Texas tradition at a superbly rich time in flat-land music, emulating elders and inspiring contemporaries. Willie Nelson might have headed for Nashville already, but talent found and fired up more talent from Houston (mostly bluesmen, including ZZ Top) to Lubbock (in the wake of Buddy Holly), Dallas (T-Bone Walker, the Vaughan brothers, Freddie King) to El Paso (Bobby Fuller) – and Austin was about to explode. Ely moved there, and helped. Even the cool polka band Brave Combo toured everywhere from Denton, including a Second Wind (Mona Golub) show in Washington Park; and Asleep at the Wheel was a party every night, anywhere.

Ely played everywhere, for decades, with more shows in Texas than elsewhere, but his records hit everywhere, too. Self-appointed dean of rock critics Robert Christgau found fault with Ely’s voice but admired his songs (many co-written with Flatlanders band-mate Butch Hancock) and his band, conferring rare “A” marks to both “Honky Tonk Masquerade” (1978) and “The Best of Joe Ely” (2001).  https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Joe+Ely

Other musicians loved him and hired him to open shows, including the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. “Thank God he didn’t grow up in New Jersey,” said Springsteen – sounding like Paul Simon who once accepted a Grammy by thanking Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album that year.

When I forwarded the news release announcing Ely had died, troubadour and cultural catalyst Michael Eck said, “Oh, no, I knew he hadn’t been doing well. He, more than anyone, was why I moved to Texas.” Eck soon wound up operating cash register next to Alejandro Escovedo’s at Watermelon Records, before Escovedo’s career took off; Eck’s, too.

He and fellow musician and fan Paul Rapp mourned, in emails they generously shared with me, after the death of Mavericks’ singer Raul Malo two weeks ago. Rapp recalled turning in to the first tavern he could find after hearing Roy Orbison had died (1988, not long after playing – great! – at the Palace). Eck said he’d do the same after hearing Malo had died – a perfectly appropriate response that likely also followed hearing Ely had passed. 

First time I saw Malo sing with the Mavericks, they opened for Tim McGraw at the Knick/Pepsi/Times Union/MVP and absolutely stole the show. McGraw never had a chance; the Mavericks wrote, arranged, played and sang better; especially sang. The second time I saw Malo was a friendly meeting with him in the Frist Museum in Nashville with brother Jim, a meeting of sometime band-mates amid exotic sports cars. But I digress. So I’ll do again; here’s Jim’s Facebook’d tribute: 

“What a loss is the passing of Raul Malo. The joy and love of music he embodied spread to all who ever heard him. I played sax in his spin-off band, the Fabulosos, and those nights were golden! He made everybody he played with feel special and gave all he had to every audience, every performance. There won’t be another like him and I feel sad, grateful, sad.”

These all really hurt, including the death of the great Memphis soul guitarist Steve Cropper (Dec. 3) – and the giants we’ve lost earlier his awful-in-many-ways year: Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, Jimmy Cliff, Garth Hudson, Ozzy, D’Angelo, Amadou Bagayhoko, Roberta Flack, Roy Ayers, Connie Francis, Al Foster, Jerry Butler, Lala Schifrin, Lou Christie, Jack DeJohnette, Andy Bey, Flaco Jimenez, …OK, enough – I’m going to stop now, to offer thanks to them and all the other giants who made our world sound and feel better.