Music Thread (post a song)

This is awesome, thanks a ton. Joe is fucking great, his band in the first clip is the one that backed him on Live Shots, one of the great underrated live albums ever made. Killer version of "Fingernails" on it too.

 

We saw him a bunch of times at Fitzgerald's, a little club in Houston, in the early 80's. There was a record store near where I worked and sometimes I'd kill the end of my lunch break in there. I knew one of the guys who worked there a little, and one day I walked in and he looked at me and said "You're gonna buy this record" and dropped the needle on "Musta Notta Gotta Lotta". He was right, that was my first Joe Ely record. Bought it on the spot.

For those of you who don't know Joe Ely, that "Live Shots" album was recorded live in England in 1980 while Joe was touring there, opening for The Clash. Very good stuff.

I follow him on FB. Ol' boy has gotten old, mid-70's at a guess. Lot of that going around. He had heart problems a while back, dunno how much he tours nowadays.

edit - LOL. A memory. We used to have a downtown music festival here called City Stages. Seven or eight stages running over three days, very diverse bands. We saw probably 70 or 80 acts there over the years before it went belly up. Anyhow, it opened at noon on Friday with an acoustic set in the courtyard of an office building, and we'd always hit it if someone interesting was playing. Joe played it once, and we're sitting on the steps maybe 30-40 feet away. There was a guy in the band I wasn't familiar with, and he was all duded up in his best Stevie Ray Vaughn getup, the flat black hat and black embroidered vest. I nudged my wife and was making fun of him for being so unoriginal. Then Joe says "This is Taya, our new guitar player. He's a flamenco guitarist from Seville, Spain."

My wife about busted a gut laughing at me. "Unoriginal, huh? Try traditional! Muwahahaha!"

 

This is one of my favourite Ely tunes, I believe Hancock is the writer.

I used the “once you called me more than just a friend” line on someone who was trying to ignore a lot of fucking baggage.

 

Anyone who likes Joe, The Flatlander albums are worth a look if you can find them.

 

Never saw Joe, missed him when he was here some years back opening for Blue Rodeo, a Canukistani country-rock band that is extremely popular here.

A great Joe weeper, also written by Butch Hancock:

 

One of the great story songs ever:

 

If you have not heard it, the "Musta Notta" album is solid start to finish. Great stuff. Here's one, done solo.

"There ain't no cure for the honky tonk blues
If they come up with something I'll have built up an immunity".

 

Great version of that on the Texas Tornadoes Live From Austin album (an ACL recording I believe). Fun album to let run.

 

From the same live show in Lubbock the first one was, 1980.

 

To bring that full circle, Flaco Jimenez of the Texas Tornados used to be in Joe's band before the Tornados formed. Now I gotta go dig up some Doug Sahm.

 

Since we are doing Texas songs, I love this one by Terry Allen (also covered by Charlie Robison, who may be better known).

 

I’ll stop posting links, but Flaco is great on the ACL version of Streets of Bakersfield. Dwight always knew and respected his music history.

Also, this could spin into another 5 or so circles before the night is done.