"I'm too old to get on a major (record label) again," Neely says. "I've been on four majors and turned 50 last summer. I saw Glen Campbell on TV the other night and he said he's trying it -- he won't get on a major again, he's too old -- he said he doesn't know anything about computers, but folks are telling him it's the way to go."

Neely, from Corpus Christi, has placed 13 songs in the Billboard Top 40 charts and recorded for four major record labels, has recently discovered a number of people on the Web who are trading his records and asking for new songs.

"We're hearing from all kinds of people," Neely says, noting that he gets e-mail from across the nation and as far away as the Netherlands asking for his music. "A lot of them were saying, `I wore out my 8-track,' " Neely says.

"If you search for me on the Internet some of the songs are for sale, you can find me on the K-Tel collections, but you can't find the albums," Neely says. "Mike (Gregory) had me look at one site the other day where a guy in Great Britain had some of the albums for sale. It's weird. Just to see all that stuff and knowing that your name is out there for the whole world to see. It's pretty eerie."

Neely joined forces with Gregory and Ralph Wranker at Taliesyn Music, a Corpus Christi company specializing in creating music for electronic games, to develop his new album and market it on the Internet.

Neely said he and his partners are not particularly concerned about recent music piracy controversies over MP3 technology on the Internet. The software allows people to download high-quality digital audio sound files from the Internet.

Last fall, the Record Industry Association of America filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to stop the sale of the Diamond Rio, a Walkman-like device that allows mobile playback of the MP3 sound files.

"I really think they're going to find a way to regulate it," Neely says, "so it will be like juke-box playing. It's just another way to fight piracy."

With revisions, Neely said, the technology could notify organizations which collect royalties when listeners download a file, and the musicians could profit from the song. Record companies argue the technology will boost music piracy, he said.

"But that's not the only reason (they've opposed the technology)," Neely said. "It's because it was bypassing the record companies."

Internet use can slash promotions costs for artists, who rarely make money on a first album with a record company, Neely said.

"What it comes down to it they just took too much of the profits," he said. "The artists had to make it on public appearances. All the recording costs go against your royalties. All the promotion costs come of there. Every ad in every magazine you see comes out of there. The artist maybe gets a hit and has to make it off of performances. Then you make another album and there you are, back where you started," Neely says.

Early in Neely's career, his record sales were accompanied by high-profile performances.

"I played the Troubadour, did American Bandstand twice, played the Bitter End," Neely says. "And it (financial problems) happened with all four labels. I had two albums with Capital, then I went to AM, then to Electra, I was on MCA. This might be the way to go. I don't need the glory. I just need the money," he says, laughing.

Neely says he would like to open the new marketing tools to other Corpus Christi musicians.

"I would love to do this for other artists," Neely says, People who are singers and songwriters and stuff. I'd like to get this going on the Web for them."

The Rocky Benton Band will open the show and perform a closing set after Neely and his band perform the new songs.

I think we're going see a lot of the old group that used to come out and listen," Neely says.

Staff writer Paige Ross can be reached at (361) 886-3622 or by e-mail at rossp@caller.com