Well, just one month after we aired our tribute episode to the late,

Todd Snyder, here we are again, unbelievably soon, to mourn the loss of another towering giant of American music. Joe Ely passed away

this week. He was the epitome of a working songwriter. It's not a coincidence that he was the

inaugural guest of this podcast. When I decided to start this show over 10 years ago, there was never any doubt as to who should be the first guest.

I can remember driving out to his house in the hill country outside of Austin.

I was with Matt Schusler, who used to play bass in my live band, and Matt would engineer the episode because at the time I knew so little about recording.

Matt and I arrived at his property and Joe gave us a tour of his studio.

Then we set up a couple microphones outside.

It must have been a nice day.

And we taped this episode under the shade of a live oak tree in Joe's front yard.

He took me on several tours early in my career.

He taught me so much.

He'll be missed by so many.

For as long as there's American music, Joe's impact will live on in it.

The end of the year has been brutal when it comes to our musical heroes. Here's hoping

for a better new year. This episode first aired on February 26, 2016, something like a lifetime ago.

Thank you for being here, and God bless Joe Ely's life and career reads something like an Americana music, Bill Braskey yarn.

Born in 1947 in Amarillo, Texas, and raised in Lubbock, he began playing in West Texas clubs at the ripe old age of 14.

When Jerry Jeff Walker passed his demo tape along to the powers that were at the time in Nashville,

he was signed to MCA Records. He's a founding member alongside Jimmy Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock of the Flatlanders.

He was a tourmate and friend of Joe Strummer and The Clash. He once picked up an at the time

unknown hitchhiking Towns Van Zant, who at the end of the ride passed along a vinyl pressing of his first album. Along with Dwight

...