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Joe Ely: Down On The Drag (MCA)

Simon Frith, Melody Maker, 28 April 1979

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.

Total word count of piece: 507

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