Night Music: Joe Ely, “Musta Notta Gotta Lotta (Sleep Last Night)”

Somebody in the Greenwich Village scene turned me onto Joe Ely, a Texas songwriter, and then the Clash embraced him, too. It was a reminder that punk was about rock and roll, and that roots music (what demographers call Americana today and what back then we probably called, for example, Texas rock) is a big part of that. Ely was also a member of what was, until their unreleased album was released, a legendary Texas band called the Flatlanders, but in 1978 it was his solo energy and a set of excellent songs that propelled his rocket to stardom.

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