Whipped Cream Difficulties

Joe Ely, one of the great Texas musicians. Variety. NYT (wow!).

I’m generally a little cynical about Texas musicians, but even I have to acknowledge that he was one of the greats. And I could just post YouTube videos all day.

This isn’t an Ely original, but I prefer this to Robert Earl Keen. That is a controversial opinion, I know.

Lawrence describes this as the greatest song ever written about a fighting rooster. Can’t argue with that.

Interestingly, he was an early adopter: he had a BBS system, back in the day when BBS systems were a thing.

After the show, Mr. Strummer and Mr. Jones took the Ely band on a tour of London’s late-night demimonde, an eye-opening experience even for someone as well-traveled as Mr. Ely. He returned the favor when the Clash came through Texas on their first U.S. tour, in 1979. He took them around Lubbock, to sites including Buddy Holly’s grave, where they all got stoned on laughing gas and beer.

…

“I had teachers tell me I wouldn’t make it to 21 when I was going to high school, so I beat the odds, you know?” he told Lone Star Music magazine in 2011. “I’ve traveled millions of miles, zigging and zagging in every kind of vehicle known to man, trying to get from one place to another to create some more music.”

He was 78.

Anthony Geary, actor. Other credits include “UHF”, “Project U.F.O.”, “Shaft” (the TV series)…

…and “Mannix”. (“A Way to Dusty Death”, season 7, episode 2. He was “Eddie Decken”.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2025 at 9:26 am and is filed under 1970s, Mannix, Music, Obits, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.