Joe Ely
NewMusicforOldFolks says …
There are a lot of people that, when you ask them what kind of music they like, say "anything but country." My reponse is always, "you're obviously not listening to the right country music." Then again, neither are most people listening to country music. Joe Ely, Lyle Lovett and Dwight Yoakum make good music and many others like Delbert McClinton, Steve Earle and even john Hiatt and add a little twang to their repetoire. Joe Ely Has been known to tour with Alejandro Escovedo and their audiences cross over more than you'd think. Honky Tonk Masquerade is my favorite, but you might want to wait for Ely's first album in four years, 2015's Panhandle Rambler.
Artist's info
Website: ely.com
See Him Live: Tour dates
Record company: Rack ’em
See also: Los Super 7
Genre: Country, Alt. Country, Roots
If you like this, look into: Lyle Lovett, Delbert McClinton, Alejandro Escovedo
Bio (From the artist's website)
Panhandle Rambler is Joe Ely back home, returned to the always dusty, perpetuallywindy, generally arid, frequently smoldering, and seemingly barren landscape aroundLubbock where he grew up and first began playing music. A place that has hostedgenerations of dry land farmers and wildcatters. It’s where Joe found his calling as awriter and performer. First located that unmistakable voice. Learned to carry himselfupright and open, to move with determination. In the rock’n’roll era, the vast spaces of west Texas have been filled with great music. Joe Ely stands in a tradition born out on these gritty plains. It includes Roy Orbison,Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, Guy Clark, Delbert McClinton, Don Walser, Terry Allen, Lloyd Maines, his daughter Natalie Maines, and Joe’s enduringmusical partners, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.. (more)
Spotify sampler
Recordings
Most Recent
SATISFIED AT LAST (2011): When you have spent more than 40 years writing and recording songs that underscore a sense of turbulence, where violent winds, thunderstorms and tornadoes figure rominently and beckoning, distant horizons are ever present, it takes courage to name an album, Satisfied At Last. Known for a life full of wanderlust and constant motion, getting lost and rediscovering himself on the world's lonesome highways and dusty back roads, Ely's latest release from his independent record label, Rack'Em Records, suggests that he is seeing things in a new light, but one listen to the album that embodies his genre busting unique mix of traditional Tex-Mex rhythms, outlaw country, Texas blues and good old-fashioned American rock and roll, people will see that he isn't about to slow down any time soon.
PANHANDLE RAMBLER (2015): Panhandle Rambler is one of the most personal albums Joe Ely’s ever made. It brings forth this terrain, the spirited people it produces and that special sense of destiny, be it terrible or glorious, that its very vastness creates. “Wounded Creek” starts the album with what you might all be a Western fantasy, except that the “bushes and the brambles,” the traffic light, the stray dog and the cold wind are all completely brought to life.
OTHERS
Joe Ely (1977)
Honky Tonk Masquerade (1978)
Down on the Drag (1979)
Live Shots (1980)
Musta Notta Gotta Lotta (1981)
Hi-Res (1984)
Lord of the Highway (1987)
Dig All Night (1987)
Milkshakes and Malts (1988)
What Ever Happened to Maria (1988)
Live at Liberty Lunch (1990)
Love and Danger (1993)
Chippy (1995)
Letter to Laredo (1995)
Live at Cambridge (1998)
Twistin' in the Wind (1998)
Live @ Antones (2000)
Streets of Sin (2003)
Ten in Texas (2003)
Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch (2007)
Silver City (2007)
