FANS STILL LOVE COUNTRY CASANOVA

One peek inside the Circle D Corral is enough to convince anyone that here, in the backyard of Beach Boys Land, country-Western music is alive and kickin’.

Even on a traditionally slow Tuesday night, the place is packed with real-life Marlboro men and women of all shapes, sizes and ages.

Leaning up against the adobe walls, between wagon wheels and beer-sign mirrors, are groups of good ol’ boys and girls in felt Stetsons, plaid shirts, Levi’s and boots.

On the massive hardwood dance floor are couples doing the two-step, the Texas polka, the flying eight, and the slap ‘n’ leather.

Seated around the tables are cigar-puffing John Waynes and platinum-blond Annie Oakleys, most of them looking like characters from every Western movie ever made.

And they’re all here for the same reason--to whoop it up to the sounds of Country Casanova, the undisputed leader of San Diego County’s dwindling pack of country-Western bands.

When the film “Urban Cowboy” elevated country-Western music to new heights of trendiness back in 1979, countless local nightclubs and bands were quick to pile onto the bandwagon. Two years later, when the fad began to fade, most of them fell off.

Today, there are only a handful of survivors still capable of bringing in the crowds. And the leaders of the pack, as far as most die-hard cowpokes are concerned, are the Circle D Corral and Country Casanova, the nightclub’s house band for the past four years.

“Actually, country-Western music is bigger now than it’s ever been,” said Tom Kenney, County Casanova’s leader and pedal-steel guitarist.

“It might not be getting the press it was during the ‘Urban Cowboy’ days, but back then it was more splash than cash: Country records were just beginning to sell, and country artists were just beginning to become big-ticket concert draws.

“So even though country-Western is no longer a fad, it hasn’t by any means lost its popularity. You may hear less about it than you did a few years ago, but the momentum has continued to build--and the money has steadily been catching up.

“And the fact that so many local nightclubs and bands have dropped out makes it all the more lucrative for the ones, like us, who have survived.”

Lucrative, indeed. In the eight years that Country Casanova have been together, they’ve never been at a loss for work. Their first three years, they were the house band at the Country Bumpkin in South Bay; their last four, at the Circle D Corral, playing to standing-room-only audiences every Tuesday through Saturday night.

In between, the group has headlined at the Nugget casino in Sparks, Nev.; cheered on President Reagan at a 1984 campaign rally, and opened local concerts for 30 of the biggest names in the business, including the Oak Ridge Boys, Alabama, George Jones and Hank Williams Jr.

They’ve also racked up a fair number of awards. The San Diego County Country Music Assn. voted them “most popular group” and “vocal group of the year” six years in a row. In 1985, they swept the statewide country music association competition as well in the “vocal group” category.

Last fall, they beat out more than 150 other local bands in the Marlboro Country Talent Round-up, which earned them the chance to play the San Diego Sports Arena with the likes of George Strait and Merle Haggard.

The next step, Kenney said, is landing a recording contract with a major label, and in the last year the group’s four members--Kenney, drummer Roger Coomes, bassist Eddie King and lead guitarist Candler Tomlinson--have incorporated a growing number of original tunes into their nightclub sets.

“I think the main reason for the popularity of the band is that we’ve always worked good at being a dance band,” Kenney said. “We play a mix of old and new country songs by just about everyone you can think of, and we try to do each song as though it were our own.

“As a result, when we’re in the clubs, we’re there for the dancers, not to be the stars. But at the same time, we have the creative potential to eventually be the stars, and it’s that direction that we’re headed in now.”

Aside from his position as Country Casanova’s leader and pedal-steel guitarist, Kenney has been pursuing a solo career. The same year that Country Casanova won the state “vocal group of the year” award, Kenney was named “steel guitarist of the year.”

In the last decade, Kenney has recorded dozens of nationally broadcast television commercials, including jingles for Budweiser and Michelob beer, as well as the sound track score for the movie “Backroads,” with Sally Fields and Tommy Lee Jones.

“I grew up a rock ‘n’ roller until the day in 1970 that I first heard Crosby, Stills and Nash’s ‘Teach Your Children,’ ” Kenney recalled. “The pedal-steel guitar part really got to me; I remember saying to myself, ‘I want to do that,’ and within months I had taken up the instrument and formed my first country-Western band.

“And by now, obviously, I love the music. Country-Western songwriters are really the backbone of the music industry. In rock, the words allude to a lot of things, but in country, the words always tell a story, simply and directly.

“It’s a very honest music, and even if we hadn’t come along as far as we have, I really wouldn’t want to be playing anything else.”