POP MUSIC REVIEW : YOAKAM’S CONSERVATIVE COUNTRY

Country singer Dwight Yoakam probably wouldn’t be getting a lot of attention if he was a product of the Nashville system. But because he came up through the Los Angeles rock-club circuit, he’s being treated as a potential special case.

What’s amazing is that Yoakam was able to emerge from the L.A. music scene without picking up a trace of the adventure, vitality, eclecticism or maverick impulses that make it an invigorating forum of clashing and merging styles. Blandness and conservatism are the glaring flaws on his new major-label debut album, “Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.,” and the same held true for his show at the Roxy on Tuesday night.

The real question is why he bothered to leave his native Kentucky--talk about a waste of gas! All he has to show for the experience is a few L.A. cliches along the lines of “this tinseled land of lost and wasted lives.”

Yoakam brings a cachet of authenticity to his pure country stuff, reminiscing about singing Hank Williams songs on the front porch in his Kentucky holler, and dedicating “Miner’s Prayer” to his granddaddy, a miner for 40 years.

On Tuesday, Yoakam and his band delivered his traditional, by-the-book country--embracing honky-tonk, bluegrass, shuffles, a touch of rockabilly--with consistent efficiency and varying degrees of warmth. His yodel-prone voice is pleasing, but doesn’t have a lot of character, and he should have no trouble getting air play where Ricky Skaggs has. With his sleepy eyes, crooked smile and tight jeans, he could benefit from a bit of heart-throb appeal as well.

The problem isn’t the execution, but the conception. Contemporary country music must be in really sad shape if Yoakam’s revival of unmodified ‘40s and ‘50s styles is seen as a vital alternative. His return to the roots is a retreat, not a redefinition, and if you’re looking for a new Gram Parsons, you’ll have to keep looking.