Joe Ely: Down On The Drag (MCA)

THIS TIME last year Joe Ely played the Wembley Country Festival and toured Britain as Merle Haggard's bemused support. I saw him in the Brighton Conference Centre. It was half-empty, and Ely's band played without response from the trim rows of Hag fans. His voice was lost in the empty spaces, and I wondered how such a fine singer got to be so ineptly sold.