Legendary Texas singer-songwriter Joe Ely died on Monday December 15 from complications of Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson’s and pneumonia. He was 78.
According to a Facebook post, “His beloved wife Sharon and daughter Marie were at his side at their home in Taos, New Mexico.”
Ely was born February 9, 1947 in Amarillo, Texas, and raised in Lubbock but later settled in Austin. Ely signed with MCA Records in the 1970s and spent more than five decades recording and performing around the world. He first gained attention in the early ‘70s as a founding member of The Flatlanders alongside Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock.
Ely opened for The Clash for the first time in 1979 in Texas, then in the United Kingdom in 1980 on the band’s London Calling tour. He then opened for the Rolling Stones on several dates in 1981. Ely toured Australia in 1985 with Cold Chisel in support of his Hi-Res album.
Ely had multiple charting albums, including Musta Notta Gotta Lotta,Twistin’ in the Wind Streets of Sin and Satisfied at Last. His 1992 album, Love and Danger, included what became one of his theme songs, his cover of Robert Earl Keen’s ‘The Road Goes on Forever.’
Ely was honored at April’s American Music Awards hosted at the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth University in New Jersey on April 26. He was inducted into the West Texas Walk of Fame in 1989 alongside Roy Orbison. In 2016, Ely was again inducted with the group The Flatlanders.