Joe Ely: Bottom Line, New York NY

SINCE HIS recent notices have offered us a new-and-improved Joe Ely, I have to begin by swearing on a stack of ticket stubs: I've been an Ely fan since well before the Clash made him an honorary Sandinista. Now that this West Texan boy has been lionized in England, taken lessons in stagecraft from Joe Strummer, traded his pedal steel player for a sax man, and generally rocked up the whole package, I must admit I liked him better in my heart when the armadillo shit was fresher on his boots.