Joe Ely: Feb. 9, 1947 – Dec. 15, 2025

(I want to write about what he felt like. You want facts, figures, discographies and anecdotes? Look elsewhere, friend.)

Remember that perfect night of rock and roll? 

The figure under the lights is standing tall even if the knees are bent, shoulders squared but loose, spring-driven TNT, wound tight slinky Sweet Gene Elvis man, every clench of the jaw full of diners and the truth-dream of the first time a child heard Eddie Cochran, oh, can you imagine such a moment, oh, dressed in black, red and blue, one leg in constant notion, one leg in a rhythmic Saint Vitus dance stomp, the other leg weird tightloose like a witches broom or a bishops blackened crook, a thing of hell heaven nature, the figure under the lights is imagining they’re Beatle John at the Top Ten or Buddy or Waylon in some flatland ballroom, face and neck red and wet and hair oiled high, the face under the lights grins with one half their mouth and sneers with the other half, and the wet-lips under the lights spit-sings the songs of Blue Saloons in Cajun Country and cellars in the Grosse Freiheit and steamed-up factory-town bars in Windsor or Sudbury and impossibly crowded coffee bars in Compton Street or West 3rd where work-shirted god-boys and turtlenecked goddess girls lean against shit pianos and tell stories of mid-century America, 

man it’s all the same, it’s all the same, 

and the boot, black or brown but cracked with joy and a dozen road winters and a dozen and a half road summers, the boot carries the mandala stains of piss and salsa and pancake syrup, and the boot is always in motion, 

the Stomp remains the same, y’see,

and the strumming fingers are beaten and bruised, and the cuticles have been through the wars and the edges of the thumbs have been chewed on during a thousand nights spent waiting like a palomino on the side of the stage for the DJ to dim the effing record and a thousand and eight nights waiting for the desk clerk to hand you the motel room key (No man nor woman owns my soul like Tom Bodett),

and the pinky on the chord hand is the most perfect pinky of all time as it searches for the fourth chord and finds it, and it hits it again and again and it is your master and servant, and it says, I am the pinkie of all knowing, I knew Tuckahoe Plantation and Triangle Shirtwaist, this is not bullshit, I am the pinkie that made suffering sweet with levitation’s power, I am the pinkie that says

“American music is the sound of America’s disenfranchised, made electric. This is a rule, without exception,” 

(the pinkie speaks) 

 “Rock and roll was created by America’s unwilling and willing immigrants, and their children and grandchildren; by the sons and daughters of sharecroppers and freed slaves, by the sons and daughters of coal miners and hard rocks, by the sons and daughters of the great northern migration, by the sons and daughters of the veterans of Johnston’s 1st Mississippi Infantry, by Pullman porters and those who grew up under the 3rd Avenue El, by those who played the bent blues in the Silver Dollar Saloons and those who sang celebratory schottisches in dusty west Texas towns” 

(the pinkie has spoken)

And that Sudbury / St. Pauli / Soho / Bourbon / Beale /Bleecker Street blue light red light John Courage Abita Blue Moon Molson Stomp, the boot of joyous levitation, that boot of joyous levitation, it’s the semaphore signal, eternal (even if you don’t know it) that announces, pronounces, Bulleit-slurs and Jack Daniels drawls, We are legend the boot announces) we are one black denim knee bent and one nearly straight yet ready to spring, we are the well-oiled pinky-trigger bar chord and the spit-covered microphone and songs about the southland and the peatlands and rails we never rode and Lincoln Highways we may have ridden and everywhere (and I mean everywhere) in between, and every moment on stage we spit and swing and sweat and strip our soul without irony (though some of the moments in between stages drip with it)

And remember that perfect night of rock and roll? 

You (yes you, you there in the glasses) are in a room, a mossy and brilliant old ballroom or a sticky old vaudeville playhouse or a shoebox tucked at the end of a neighborhood saloon, doesn’t matter, it’s all the same in the hands of the master levitators, the wooden floors softened by beer, the space between you and the other happy, hollering patrons oiled by sweat and scented by bourbon, the low ceiling low or high the ceiling domed (you are caught in a bass trap, the best place to fall in love with rock and roll), the stage knee high or head high or curb high and bathed (always) in blue tempered by red shadows and the stele of monitors and maybe even an ancient HVAC system hanging awkwardly off the back wall, and the night is old and the night is young, and maybe this happens every Thursday and Saturday for 15 years, or maybe not, and each of those times you’re waiting for this moment, even if you hadn’t known it was possible, and then this happens, this is the moment: 

The room levitates, maybe for eight seconds maybe for four minutes, suddenly you recognize that the floor underneath you and the soul within you (the “soul” being the gyroscope between the bottom of the throat and top of the heart) has responded to repetition and rhythm and passion and complete and total lack of irony on stage, and the Saint Vitus Dance Boot Stomp and metric Pinky Swing lifts you not just out of your seat but out of your head and out of any reality that doesn’t belong to Bo Diddley or the Collins Kids or even Stereolab (uh huh), and you levitate, baby, boy babies and girl babies and them babies, all that matters is The Beat, Eternal, it’s the aural/sensory equivalent of when you stare raptly at patterned wallpaper without blinking and the images of both eyes combine to make one strange, gorgeous 3D image, and it feels like the old wood or bursting plaster and the walls and the space behind your eyes is filled with some strange oxygen, and the perfect pinkie boogie and boot stomp lifts you in the air, the helium of repetition and power and the same sound that filled the air of Congo Square on Saturday evenings and everywhere else Juba was king, and you lift off, jerry lee joe elystrummer juba middle finger to satanic mill and cotton field, 

Only Saint Vitus pinky and spastic boot stomp can transform a sound born of deprivation and pain and sadness and dislocation into levitation rock, rock rock, rock, rockland

Rockland, land of Jolie Blonde and Bo Diddley

Rockland, land of In the Pines and Hoy Hoy Hoy 

Rockland, land of Cheree Cheree and Clampdown

Rockland, I’ll see you there at the Foot of Canal Street and Humping on the Parking Meters, too 

Joe Strummer! I am with you in Rockland 

Stompin Tom! I am with you in Rockland 

Walter Lure! I am with you in Rockland

Mia Zapata! I am with you in Rockland 

Lux Interior! I am with you in Rockland

Dexter Romweber! I am with you in Rockland

Wilko Johnson! I am with you in Rockland 

and remember that perfect night of rock and roll? 

Joe Ely was on stage. 

VIDEO: Joe Ely Live from Austin City Limits

• Author
• Recent Posts

Tim Sommer

Tim Sommer is a musician, record producer, former Atlantic Records A&R representative, WNYU DJ, MTV News correspondent, VH1 VJ, and founding member of the band Hugo Largo. He is the author of Only Wanna Be with You: The Inside Story of Hootie & the Blowfish and has written for publications such as Trouser Press, the Observer and The Village Voice. Learn more at Tim Sommer Writing.

Latest posts by Tim Sommer (see all)

• Bob Dylan Live 2026 - August 1, 2026
• Inside Macca’s ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’ - June 6, 2026
• The Roots of Sunn O))) - April 15, 2026