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July 21 - 28, 2000

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***1/2 Joe Ely

LIVE @ ANTONE'S

(Rounder)

Joe Ely This live CD from Clifford Antone's famed Austin club is proof that Joe Ely has grown no mellower as he approaches his mid 50s. All 14 of these numbers -- from Ely's Tex-Mex set pieces like "Gallo del Cielo" and "Me and Billy the Kid" to epics like songwriter Robert Earl Keen's robbery tale "The Road Goes On Forever" to romances like Jimmie Dale Gilmore's "Dallas" -- are sung with the same hard authority that caught Joe Strummer's attention 20 years ago and put Ely on tour with the Clash. And Ely still surrounds himself with crack bands. In particular, guitarist Jesse Taylor and steel player Lloyd Maines help him kick up Texas dust. It's in that dust that Ely so vividly continues to etch a mythic portrait of the Lone Star State, where a cowboy can become a hero or a hard-timer in a flash, depending on which way his luck's blowing across the flatlands. As for Ely, fate seems to have branded him a country-rock outsider forever. But give him a stage and he sure sounds as if he didn't give a damn.

-- Ted Drozdowski
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