POP MUSIC REVIEW : Crystal Gayle’s Charms Fail to Overcome Schlock

When Crystal Gayle emerged on the national scene in 1977 with “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?” it marked the advent of sophisticated understatement in country music, relying on jazz piano voicings and Gayle’s half-whispered, half-sobbing vocals.

Unfortunately, Gayle eventually succumbed to Nashville’s formulaic approach by recording marginal songs with heavy-handed arrangements.

And those same heavy-handed arrangements, long on synthesizer-generated strings and cheesy horn parts, marred what might have been an engaging show Sunday at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim.

Gayle is a personable entertainer and chatted easily with the crowd in a soft voice that drew out every word. But glibness couldn’t overcome the lame arrangements, so musically the show ranged from excellent to less than average.

On “Talking in Your Sleep,” Gayle balanced on the edge of heartbreak, as her voice occasionally caught on the lyric. With just a few strings, a bit of piano and a touch of piano for backing, Gayle’s singing was the focal point, instead of floundering about in an overwhelming arrangement.

Equally successful was Gayle’s reading of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.” Instead of trying to cop Holiday’s vocal chops, Gayle sang it in her own whisper-to-a-cry. The stylized treatment worked; in fact, it worked so well that Gayle might well consider moving in the direction of standards instead of recording the kind of schlock that Nashville seems determined to hand her.

The ballads worked best, but that is not to say faster-paced material doesn’t suit the singer, who appeared Sunday in a filmy white dress with a sparkling bodice that made her look more like Glinda the Good Witch than a country star. “Why Have You Left the One You Left Me for?” had the crowd clapping along as her voice bounced from note to note.

However, a badly chosen version of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” served to evoke only the worst images of a bad Vegas revue. With an overly upbeat, shapeless arrangement, the song was robbed of its soul and its ever-hopeful message.

Equally maudlin was her own “Don’t Take Me Half the Way” in which the sole purpose of an accelerated tempo seemed to be to simulate tension. It didn’t work.

Even though she is the sister of country legend Loretta Lynn, Gayle is anything but the homespun everywoman Lynn represents. A third sister--Peggy Sue, whom Gayle introduced toward the end of the 65-minute set--falls somewhere between the two, as was evidenced by her rendition of the hit she wrote for Loretta, “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind).”

Los Angeles’ Jim Lauderdale, who opened the show, is indicative of what Dwight Yoakam’s success has wrought. Playing mostly original material, his singing ranged from emotive--on Lefty Frizzell’s “No One to Talk to (but the Blues)” and “Blue Way”--to passable.

The audience warmly received each and every song about heartbreaks and aches, a rarity given the unfamiliarity of the material. Lauderdale’s fairly pure honky-tonk sensibility and Ray Austin’s weeping steel seemed to strike just the right chord in the audience, especially when he got to “What Am I Waiting for?” from the recently released compilation, “A Town South of Bakersfield Two.”