Joe Ely, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who helped spearhead Texas’ progressive country movement in the 1970s, has died, his representative confirmed to Rolling Stone. Ely died from complications of Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson’s, and pneumonia at his home in Taos, New Mexico. He was 78.
As is true of most revered country icons, Ely lived a long, storied life ripe with song material. Although his career technically began with the Flatlanders, the country band he formed with fellow Texans Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock in 1972, Ely truly found an audience through his 1977 self-titled solo debut. With each passing year, Ely’s natural lyricism and ear for rock hooks helped push a new type of progressive country to the forefront of the Texas scene.
Born in Amarillo, Texas, on February 9, 1947, Ely and his family soon relocated to Lubbock, where he spent his teenage years attending high school and playing guitar. In his 20s, he crossed paths with Gilmore and Hancock, and they decided to form a band that would utilize their interests in country, folk, and storytelling. The Flatlanders only released one album, 1973’s All American Music, before disbanding the same year. However, once the three musicians found independent success as solo artists, they regrouped to record another handful of albums together and perform live as a band once again, eventually earning their place in the Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame.
When he launched his solo career, Ely settled into country music from an open-minded and open-hearted place, churning out songs that welcomed everyone into the fold regardless of how familiar they were with the genre. That accessible approach earned him multiple charting albums, including 1981’s Musta Notta Gotta Lotta hitting No. 135 on the Billboard 200 and No. 12 on the Top Country Albums chart. Yet for all of his beloved originals, one of Ely’s biggest songs was a cover of Robert Earl Keen’s “The Road Goes on Forever,” which he tacked onto his 1992 album, Love and Danger. His final album, Love and Freedom, came out in February 2025.
Most rock audiences learned of Ely not through his records, but through his opening gigs. The Rolling Stones brought him out on several dates in 1981, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tapped him for over a dozen shows, and a number of other classic-rock acts—Stevie Nicks, the Kinks, the Pretenders—asked Ely to join them on stage, introducing him to thousands of new fans and further bridging the gap between country and rock in the process.
