The Record Collector

A terrific album from the master of Tex-Mex and kick-ass Texas rock and roll. Worth the price of admission just to hear Letter To L.A. Another great track is Me & Billy The Kid. Originally released in 1987, which is probably also when this record first landed on my turntable. It still sounds great. Upon first hearing it, my son, Madison, asked me what kind of music this was. I told him it was good music!

Ely grew up in Lubbock, Texas, which was also where Buddy Holly grew up. In 1970, with fellow Lubbock musicians Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock, he formed The Flatlanders. According to Ely, Gilmore was a well of country music. "He knew everything about it. And Butch was from the folk world. I was kinda the rock & roll guy and we almost had a triad. We hit it off and started playing a lot together. That opened up a whole new world I had never known existed."

In 1972, they recorded their debut album, but broke up shortly thereafter and have since followed individual solo career paths, although they do occasionally appear together on each other's albums and have also recorded together as a reformed Flatlanders.

Ely's first solo outing was released in 1977. The supporting tour took him to England for the first time where he met punk rock group The Clash. Impressed with each other's performances, the two bands later toured together, including shows in Lubbock (I'd have paid a good price to see that one) as well as Laredo and Ciudad Juárez, in Mexico, just across the border from El Paso.

The Clash later paid tribute to Ely by with the lyrics, "Well there ain't no better blend than Joe Ely and his Texas Men" in their song If Music Could Talk, from 1980's terrific Sandinista LP. And - as most people probably wouldn't know - Ely sang backing vocals on the Clash song Should I Stay or Should I Go? Joe Strummer had planned to record with Ely's band, but died before that could happen.

On May 1, 1982, Joe Ely organized and hosted the Third Annual Tornado Jam in Lubbock to a crowd of 25,000. On the bill were Leon Russell, Joan Jett and The Crickets. The first Tornado Jam was fundraiser to help Lubbock after a tornado - thus the name. The second jam attracted even more people, and there were a couple of additional jams after that.

Ely was asked to write songs for the soundtrack of Robert Redford's movie The Horse Whisperer, which led to the re-forming of The Flatlanders, which resulted in a new album in 2002 and another in 2004.

In 2007 Ely released Happy Songs From Rattlesnake Gulch on his own label, Rack 'Em Records. In 2015 he released Panhandle Rambler and spent 2016 as the reigning Texas State Musician, a one-year designation he formally accepted in a ceremony at the State Legislature that spring.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Joe Ely among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire - so if you haven't got any of his vinyl yet get going or you'll miss out. You can find lots of it cheap in the used bins in a lot of record stores. But that's all there is left.