Jo Carol Pierce Obituary, Death – The passing of Jo Carol Pierce is a terrible loss. Since 1970, American singer-songwriter, playwright, and screenwriter Jo Carol Pierce has made her home in the city of Austin in the state of Texas. Pierce was referred to as “an official local hero in her chosen community” by Karen Schoemer in 1993. Pierce was born in Wellington, Texas on July 20th, 1944. His birthday is July 20th. She went to high school in Lubbock, Texas, the city in which she was born and raised, where she was classmates with Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. In the 1980s, Ely Halley and David Halley were two of her biggest supporters when it came to writing music.
Her fellow musicians from Austin put together the compilation album Across the Great Divide: Songs of Jo Carol Pierce in 1993. The album featured 19 different interpretations of her songs and was released in Austin. In addition to the CDs she’s released, she’s also written a number of works for the cabaret genre, including the musical comedies Bad Girls Upset by the Truth and the semi-autobiographical In the West. It was first presented to the public for the first time outside of the United States at SXSW in March 1993, and it was ultimately issued as her self-titled debut solo album in 1996. 2008 saw the independent release of her second album under her own name, titled Dog of Love.
Don McLeese of The No Depression referred to the album Bad Girls Upset by the Truth as “Mostly…a hoot,” despite the fact that the underlying blasphemy in “I Blame God” and “Vaginal Angel” takes religion much more seriously than the Christianity that would appear to appear to oppose it on the surface. Both songs, “I Blame God” and “Vaginal Angel,” are examples. Robert Christgau, who also gave the same CD an A grade, asserts that the song cycle is about a Lubbock girl who searches for Jesus on the two-lane blacktop of carnal knowledge and ultimately runs into the righteous desert of giving birth to Her. Christgau’s assessment was included on the same CD.
He continued by explaining that in the song, Pierce is “beautifully helped by a number of musicians who are there for her each and every time she commits suicide.” Bad Girls Upset by the Truth was awarded a perfect score of four stars by Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune. Kot also referred to Pierce as “one of the most innovative composers ever to emerge out of Texas” and described the album as “triumphant.” Pierce’s wit can be heard on Dog of Love, according to Jeff McCord of Texas Monthly. This is despite Pierce’s drawl, off-key singing, and occasionally unexpected hard rock edge (‘Rock in My Shoe’ sounds like a Neil Young song).
Pierce got married in 1963 to Jimmie Dale Gilmore, who she had dated back when they were in high school. Before deciding to end their marriage in 1967, the couple welcomed a child into the world. She has stated that because her second marriage was only three weeks long, she does not count it in her total number of marriages. By the year 2020, she will have wed Guy Juke, who will be her third husband.