Joe Ely
28 articles
Audio interviews
Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, 30 October 1988
The Texan Troubadour talks about the disappearance of the honky-tonks and the resulting change in his music; a 13-year-old Charlie Sexton playing in his band; his association with the Clash; his album Hi-Res and the lost final MCA album; Lord of the Highway and his new band; his latest album Dig All Night; fellow Flatlanders Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore; how Shelby Singleton screwed that trio; playing solo versus with playing with a band; and his hometown of Austin, Texas.
File format: mp3; file size: 64.8mb, interview length: 1h 07' 33" sound quality: ****
List of articles in the library
Joe Ely: Joe Ely (MCA 2242 $6 98; MCA T-2242, tape $7.98)
Review by Joe Nick Patoski, Country Music, May 1977
IT MUST be a bit disheartening for an earnest band knocking around Austin for the past two years hoping for a ride on one of ...
Review by Gary Kenton, Circus, 12 May 1977
HAVING BEEN brought up on rock & roll, it took me a while to discover that country music had its good points. (At the very ...
Review by Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 24 September 1977
HAVE YOU heard of Joe Ely before? Thought not. I certainly haven't. His past history is a total blank as far as I'm concerned. And ...
Joe Ely: Honky Tonk Masquerade
Review by Fred Dellar, New Musical Express, 25 March 1978
'T FOR Texas, T for Tennessee' sang Jimmie Rodgers back in '28, cementing the blues alongside country music, thus helping himself to a million-seller. ...
Essay by Joe Nick Patoski, Texas Monthly, November 1978
Lubbock was the birthplace of rock'n'roll. And Texas rock'n'roll hasn't left home. ...
Texas Country Rock: Texas Twisters
Overview by Martin Hawkins, Melody Maker, 25 November 1978
THE ECHOES of rock get older; and likewise those consumers who, like me, retain an interest in them – rather than giving in to the ...
Heart Of Texas: Ely's Honky-Tonk Heroics
Profile and Interview by Joe Nick Patoski, Crawdaddy!, April 1979
LUBBOCK, TEXAS — To understand why Joe Ely is the most promising singer/songwriter to come out of Texas since Willie Nelson, one must understand his ...
Joe Ely: Down On The Drag (MCA)
Review by Simon Frith, Melody Maker, 28 April 1979
THIS TIME last year Joe Ely played the Wembley Country Festival and toured Britain as Merle Haggard's bemused support. I saw him in the Brighton ...
Live Review by David Hepworth, Sounds, 19 May 1979
The timeless quality of cowboy boots ...
The Clash, Joe Ely, Mikey Dread: Electric Ballroom/Lyceum, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 23 February 1980
Fings ain't what they used to be ...
Live Review by Fred Dellar, New Musical Express, 8 March 1980
THEY BOP, they hop, they bounce like rampaging 'roos. They sing songs bearing titles as profound as 'She's My Baby, She's My Girl' and 'Do ...
Report and Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, April 1980
SITTING on a curb with a fuming Joe Ely... ...
Retrospective by Martin Hawkins, Country Music People, May 1980
Texan star JOE ELY is not quite the newcomer to recording that we think. MARTIN HAWKINS reveals the tale of the FLATLANDERS' sessions of 1972 ...
Joe Ely: Musta Notta Gotta Lotta
Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, June 1981
ALL THE ROCKABILLY revivalists have been clinging to every neo-rockabilly act (Matchbox, Crazy Cavan) and every honky-tonk hack (Delbert McClinton, Gary Stewart) so loudly for ...
Live Review by Mick Brown, The Guardian, 1 June 1981
AMONG AN older generation alienated by the bleak and joyless fare offered up by so much of the British rock music that purports to be ...
Joe Ely: Bottom Line, New York NY
Live Review by Fred Schruers, Musician, August 1981
SINCE HIS recent notices have offered us a new-and-improved Joe Ely, I have to begin by swearing on a stack of ticket stubs: I've been ...
Joe Ely: You Can Take The Boy Out Of Texas...
Interview by Jon Young, Trouser Press, September 1981
IT DOESN'T take a genius to figure out that country music is in pretty sorry shape these days. There's something wrong when unbearably bland hacks ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Joe Ely: The Garden, Boston MA
Live Review by Julie Panebianco, Boston Rock, 3 September 1981
THERE IS always a part in a Tom Petty song when he knows he's got you, when he zeroes in and touches you. Like the ...
Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, July 1984
JOE ELY'S Hi-Res has a feverish, jittery seediness, a buzz you can't shake off. Remember the first episode of Cheers, where the guys argued about ...
Interview by Charles Bermant, The Globe and Mail, 29 September 1987
WITH ITS OWN hot brand of Texas rock and roll, the Joe Ely Band has transformed the tiny stage of this rural club into a ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, Vox, February 1991
Joe Ely hocked all he owned to get his latest album released, making him the loan star of the Lone Star state. Gavin Martin meets ...
Joe Ely: I’m A Honky Tonk Man…
Profile and Interview by John Tobler, Country Music People, October 1992
THE CAREER OF Joe Ely, one of the most dynamic performers in the world and a leading light of the Texan singer/songwriter genre, has largely ...
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Vogue, October 1992
YOU KNOW THE country boom has gone too far when stadium-busting hat acts like Garth Brooks start wearing those clamp-on microphones sported by Madonna and ...
Lubbock on Everything: The Best Little Neo-Country Town in Texas?
Retrospective and Interview by Richard Gehr, unpublished, 1996
In 1996, Richard Gehr went down to Texas to explore the history and mythology of Buddy Holly’s home town. This was his unpublished report for ...
Lubbock on Everything: The Evocation of Place in Popular Music (A West Texas Example)
Essay by Blake Gumprecht, Journal of Cultural Geography, Fall 1998
Landscape into Art THE ROLE OF LANDSCAPE and the importance of place in literature, poetry, the visual arts, even cinema and television, is well established ...
Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001
A CRITICS' FAVOURITE, Ely's brash high-energy blend of Texas honky-tonk styles and rock was an important influence on country performers at a time when the ...
Lyle Lovett/Joe Ely/Guy Clark/John Hiatt: State Theatre, Cleveland
Live Review by Holly Gleason, No Depression, 30 April 2007
YOU HAVE TO start at the end – where they paid respects to Townes Van Zandt, the songwriter/compadre who captured the essence of life after ...
see also Flatlanders, The
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