ALABAMA PERFORMS TRUE TO FORM

If energetic exercise guru Richard Simmons could sing with a drawl, he just might become a country-music powerhouse--after all, Alabama keeps winning Entertainer of the Year awards with little more than a few leg kicks, enthusiastic jumps and winsome smiles from lead singer Randy Owen.

But the group obviously has gleaned one thing from all the music-industry accolades and commercial success: If it works, don’t fix it. So even though the quartet’s latest tour, which came to the Pacific Amphitheatre on Sunday, is billed as “Fans Tour ‘86,” the 75-minute show was almost identical to Tour ’85 and Tour ’84 and Tour ’83. . . .

If anything, the show was more superficial than usual because the foursome tossed off many of its slick pop hits in abridged renditions and medleys.

The only surprise was some feedback early in the show and an uneven sound mix that had Teddy Gentry’s bass overpowering the other instruments, negating the one virtue of most of Alabama’s recordings: meticulous arrangements and production.

The opening set by the Charlie Daniels Band, in contrast, at least had the energy of music born of the barroom, not demographic surveys. Daniels’ other advantage over so many bland country pop acts is a band that cracked and jumped, swung and rocked in all the right places, making it easy to ignore the leader’s occasional Rambo-ish politicizing.