POP MUSIC REVIEW : Ricky Van Shelton’s Wondrous Voice Trapped in a Generic Package

If you threw Randy Travis, George Strait and Dwight Yoakam in a blender, hit whip, chop, puree and liquefy, poured it into a mold and put a cowboy hat on it, you’d probably end up with something a lot like Ricky Van Shelton. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, judging by the response to Van Shelton’s 75-minute set Sunday at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim.

On one hand, the native of Grit, Va., possesses a wondrous voice that has a pure country tone that surpasses even that of Travis. And Van Shelton knows how to wrap his vocal cords around only the tastiest country tunes, be it a classic like the Patsy Cline hit “He’s Got You,” his own career-making intonation “Somebody Lied” or a BoDeans cover tune.

Unfortunately, Van Shelton projects neither stage presence nor a sense of his own identity, and that’s a problem. Van Shelton appears content to stand in front of the microphone and strum his guitar, offering an occasional “Aw shucks,” which does nothing to elevate him from the rest of the deep voiced, down-home crooners currently occupying the airwaves.

The lack of identity plagues Van Shelton’s material as well. Perhaps because he does so many things well, there’s no one sound that ties his show together. From the honky-tonk rave-up treatment given Foster and Lloyd’s “Crazy Over You” to the slow, aching “Life Turned Her That Way” or the quasi-swing “Wild-Eyed Dream,” Van Shelton never gave any of the songs an indelible stamp that would let the audience that these songs are his.

Still, it’s early in his career, and if anyone can catch Randy Travis, it’s this former pipe-fitter with the flinty good looks and love of hard country music.

Opening the show was Southern Pacific, a California-based band that has no such identity crisis. With a pedigree that includes two former Doobie Brothers (lead guitarist/vocalist John McFee and drummer Keith Knudsen), the ex-lead singer of Pablo Cruise (David Jenkins), the keyboardist behind Crystal Gayle (Kurt Howell) and the bass player from Creedence Clearwater Revival (Stu Cook), this is a band whose members have been around and aren’t afraid to be aggressive musically.

They played hard, directed country that owed much to the Bakersfield school of country music as pioneered by Don Rich during his tenure with Buck Owens. McFee’s solos, especially, were high-octane twang fests that cut through the pounding back-beat knocked out by Knudsen.

The band moved from genre to genre with a sense of confidence and conviction that gave them the latitude to experiment.