His novel, Reverb-An Odyssey, is a thinly veiled autobiographical fiction about a young musician, Earle, who comes of age during the turbulence of the late ’60s. The backdrop is the Vietnam War and the evolving counter-culture of music, art and philosophy. The journey takes Earle from a small West Texas town to Venice, California in 1967.
Written in narrative fragments, the prose are rich with realistic imagery of Ely’s Southwestern culture of small towns in Texas and the grand sweep of Los Angeles in the late 60’s. Along the way we meet flawed and colorful characters sketched out in episodic narratives that read like rapid fire triple espresso induced visions from The Last Picture Show and On the Road. For example:
Earle poured a glass of milk and, when he put it to his lips, old memories erupted from down deep and lodged in the back of his throat. Since his father had died a few years ago, he had taken refuge in sound. When certain situations set off poundings inside his chest, he could only put them to rest by scratching out some restless ode, transporting himself away from the mausoleum his home had become. He picked up his pencil from the table and, on the back of his mother’s latest doctor’s prescription, wrote…..Let the Dead Wake Up.
According to Ely, the novel is a very personal account of his own impressions of the era.
“The story is built around my experiences during the summer of 1966. I took liberty and used the time line of the Summer of Love, 1967. The Vietnam War was going on. No one knew why we were over there. I didn’t understand. I was playing an old club in Houston. I didn’t like their practices and I was run out of town on a rail. I went from there to Fort Worth then to Venice, California. But, because it’s fiction I could add anything I wanted and so I decided to change the course of the story to 1967. During the time, I questioned everybody about the Vietnam War. People I knew around town. I even asked the preacher at the church where grew up going. He told me anything America did was ordained by God, so I shouldn’t question it. I was trying to figure out why there was war at all. It was an era of exiting change in music and art while there was this dreadful situation going on across the ocean. I was really looking for answers.”
In the world Ely creates in Reverb, music becomes the healer, the shelter from the turmoil of the times and the redepmption of seeker, Earle(Ely’s legal name) as he circles his way from L.A. back to West Texas. The twists and turns in the story alongside the mythic imagery never lets up throughout the book. Most of all, its about telling the truth in story form cloaked in an original tale of coming of age.
Ely’s career began with The Flatlanders in the late 60’s, which included his Lubbock friends, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock. But, as a solo artist, he would take off with his first self-titled solo album in 1977 followed by a close association with The Clash and an extensive tour of England.
With this much history in his solo career the natural question comes up; why write a novel about this period of his life?
“Every once in a while so many questions come together at one time. During that era so many people got focused on trying to find answers to questions about the war. I had no way of dealing with it. Music became my escape. At least it distracted me, if nothing else. It felt like luck that I had something to grab hold of because a few times I could have been swept away.” He explained. “But I was really trying to unravel the puzzle of a war that was meaningless. There were no answers. I lost so many friends to that war. But, I’d never told this story in my songs. It was then when I found music to be so important to me. It was right before I met Butch and Jimmie when I came back from California in 1967. That was when The Flatlanders happened.”
The Flatlanders became Joe Ely’s launch, but his solo career later in the decade would find him rocking his heart out at Texas roadhouses, honky tonks and rock clubs. His show became so legendary, he began to garner comparisons to fellow Lubbock citizen, Buddy Holly.
By the early 80’s, Ely began experimenting at his home with studio equipment available to him. What followed demonstrates his visionary nature.
“I bought a Roland 808 drum machine, a reel to reel and a sequencer from an old Mac computer with cards in it.” He said. (In 1983, his ‘old Mac’ was actually considered a cutting edge Apple 11 with a sound card) “I had a bunch of new songs, so I said to my friends, lets see where we get with this. I used a headphone amp for a guitar amp, it wasn’t even a full amp. We learned from the ground up. I had to learn how to program the drum machine and found the right sounds on the sequencer. I worked on it for several months. I presented it to the record company, but they turned it down. The label liked the songs but wanted me to go into the studio and re-record them using drums and their equipment.”
On first listen to B484, released on Ely’s own Rack ’em Records, is stunning. It not only captures the vibrant passion of his Ely’s early shows, but has that near delirious reverb based echo-slap-back sound once championed in the 50’s Sun Studio days. Songs like “What’s Shaking Tonight,” “Cool Rockin’ Loretta,” and “Isabella,” have the raw feeling of new discovery in art as pure and as sure as Elvis once uttered the words, “That’s Alright, Mama” in Memphis in 1954. Considering the home-studio nature of these sessions, the results are all the more stunning. The album simply rocks without any hint of digitization or electronic manipulation. Ely agrees,
”I had just come back from England playing with The Clash and Elvis Costello. I took a year off to write songs. I wasn’t bound by a sound. I was working from the ground up, one song at time. I had a whole lot of influences from England. We had been doing shows with The Specials. Every once in a while, I’ve gone back through my tapes and have listened to those sessions. It sounds like an actual record. I finally said ‘I can’t stand it. I’ve got to release this thing!”
1984’s vinyl L.P. Hi Res became the studio album which re-created the songs from the home sessions. However, MCA, Ely’s record label at the time, never released the album on CD. Today, B484, stands as one of the first recordings using a personal computer in a home setting. The very idea that a musician could make a credible record at a home studio with a computer was not only revolutionary and visionary, but also threatening to the major record labels of the day.
Also, to top things off, releasing on December 15th, will be a fine Christmas gift from Joe Ely. A rare duet with Linda Ronstadt which dates back to 1987. During a recent visit with Ronstadt the two artists recalled the session for “Where is My Love.” After a search, the recording was found. Ely and Ronstadt agreed the song held up well over time. Written by West Texas songwriter, Randy Banks, it is a love song of regret that brings Linda Ronstadt back to her days as the country-rock queen of the early 70’s. Her vocal interchange with Ely carries a soulful reminder of how two fine artists create magic through chemistry and the sheer joy of sharing together in a great country song.
With these fine end-of-the-year releases from Joe Ely, it appears the past and the present are streaming together to confirm his artistry and his legacy. As a pioneer of Americana music, his renaissance nature finds rest in all of these newly discovered and developed gems, from a novel to archival innovations and the lovely treasure of a duet with one of America’s great songstresses. With a new album and book due out in 2015, Ely shows no sign of slowing down. He says it best:
“I’ve worked in music all of my life. I’m at a point of releasing things never released while I write new stuff. I feel like there’s no shackles or chains. Right now, I’m glad to be upright and just go out and burn a little rubber.”
