Joe Ely, Austin’s musical apostle of change, is dead.
The Texas musician passed away on December 15, following struggling with dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and pneumonia.
A voice to raw for radio
A man true to his craft. A force of nature. Indestructible. A genuine troubadour.
There’s so much you could say about alt-country legend Joe Ely. And if you’ve opened for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and collaborated with the likes of The Clash and Bruce Springsteen, you’ve definitely earned your place among the icons of music.
But sadly, Joe Ely’s journey in this world has come to an end.
A statement on his official Facebook page reads:
“Legendary songwriter, singer, and raconteur Joe Ely died today from complications of Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson’s and pneumonia. 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. He was a leader of the extraordinary parade of artists raised in Lubbock who later settled in the live music capital of Austin.”
Over the years, many struggled to pin down the image of Joe Ely. In the 1990s, he was described as a singer with a voice too raw for radio. Some thought he was a songwriter whose songs ran too long for the average VH1 video. At the same time, he was hailed as one of the most understated rock ’n’ roll legends around.
His image seemed to bounce like a ping-pong ball between his label’s country office in Nashville and its pop music headquarters in Los Angeles. Simply put, marketing Joe Ely was a challenge—and perhaps that’s why many country fans never discovered him.
Ely himself, however, knew exactly what he was doing.
“When I first started recording, I had a lot of opportunities to jump into the media circus, which is really what it takes to get national recognition – be on TV all the time, be in the right places, go to boxing matches,” Ely told the Dallas Morning News in 1995.
“That’s not what I want to do. I have plenty of things I deem more important than being on some afternoon talk show.”
West Texas’ answer to the Beatles
Joe Ely got his start as a young folkie, performing on street corners and riding boxcars all over the country in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
“I was working my way around the country playing any place I could, and I had a bunch of songs written,” Ely said in 1984.
In 1971, he joined forces with fellow Lubbock musicians Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock. They formed The Flatlanders – West Texas’ answer to the Beatles, according to some.
Ely recalled the unique chemistry between them:
“Jimmie [Gilmore] was like 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.”
For the most part, The Flatlanders’ music stayed unheard for decades, only emerging in the 1990s after all three members had built successful solo careers. The band reunited in 1998 and continued to perform and record together over the years, up until Ely’s passing.
Why he joined The Clash
Over the course of his career, Joe Ely released 16 solo albums, and it was while touring England with his self-titled debut that he first crossed paths with The Clash.
Ely later joined them on tour in Texas and Mexico and the legendary punk band even gave Ely a shout-out in their 1980 album Sandinista! on the track “If Music Could Talk,” with the lyric: “Well there ain’t no better blend than Joe Ely and his Texas Men.” Ely would also go on to provide backup vocals for The Clash’s 1982 hit “Should I Stay or Should I Go” from Combat Rock.
In the early 1990s, Ely joined forces with John Mellencamp, John Prine, Dwight Yoakam, and James McMurtry in the short-lived supergroup Buzzin’ Cousins, contributing the song “Sweet Suzanne” to the soundtrack of Mellencamp’s film Falling from Grace.
More recently, Bruce Springsteen appeared on Ely’s 2024 album Driven to Drive, guesting on the track “Odds of the Blues.” Eight years prior, Springsteen had inducted Ely into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, honoring his lasting influence.
One little-known fact
Beyond his music, Joe Ely had a variety of other pursuits — some of which might surprise fans. One little-known fact is that he played a key role in creating the famous Stubb’s barbecue sauce. For those unfamiliar, the face on Stubb’s Bar-B-Que products is a real person: C.B. “Stubb” Stubblefield, the company’s founder.
Stubb, who grew up in Lubbock, actually enlisted Ely and his wife Sharon to help develop his signature sauce. In the early ’90s, Ely persuaded Stubb to move to Austin, designed the labels, and Sharon helped sell the product door-to-door from the trunk of Stubb’s Cadillac.
The sauce quickly gained popularity, eventually hitting supermarket shelves, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Ely even helped promote it, famously bringing a jar to David Letterman during a guest appearance. The talk show host was so impressed that he invited Stubb himself onto the show. It’s a small but delightful detail that says a lot about Ely’s character and creativity.
Most recent album in 2025
Joe Ely’s most recent solo album, Love and Freedom, was released in February 2025. Just a few months after that release, he announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia.
Joe ELy passed away at his home in Taos, New Mexico, on December 15, 2025, at the age of 78, with his wife Sharon (they first met as teenagers in Lubbock) and daughter Marie by his side.
My sincere condolences to his family, friends and all of Ely’s fans. What a life he lived – thank you for all the music and memories.
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