POP MUSIC REVIEW : Travis, Oslin’s Smooth and Easy Outing

Randy Travis might look a little like James Dean, but when he delivers a song he’s like Spencer Tracy at work: no apparent effort, no visible technique, just utter devotion to and absorption in the role.

On stage Tuesday at the Universal Amphitheatre, Travis didn’t monkey with his strength. He toyed with some melodies a little more than he does on record, but he kept it clean and simple. He flashed no eccentricities, he didn’t employ any mannerisms or quirks as an easy signature. Travis doesn’t have the flourishes of a Willie Nelson, but like Nelson he goes straight to the song’s truth.

That by itself doesn’t explain why Travis has dominated country music for the past few years, but it’s the cornerstone of his reign. Adherence to country’s original musical values and an ear for good songs are other parts of it. Good looks don’t hurt.

But the country field is full of hunks with good voices and traditional sounds. Travis’ deep connection with his audience can probably be attributed to an anti-macho stance that makes him the answer to a woman’s prayers.

After a 1986 debut album drowning in remorse and self-laceration, Travis hit his keynote vein in his second LP, whose title could be his thematic banner: “Always & Forever.” He’s the guy who’s learned his lesson and wants back in, the man who will make that permanent commitment.

He might be too good to be true, but at the Amphitheatre, where he was opening a three-night stand with new country queen K. T. Oslin as the opening act, Travis made it all seem real and easy.

The risers and the music stands, with their wood paneling and the RT logo, enhanced the traditional, tasteful tone and gave Travis and his six musicians the look of a band at a lakeside lodge in the ‘50s. The singer’s long, corny jokes (remember the one about the lady in the tight dress getting on the bus?) made him seem like one of those amiable entertainers at the early Grand Ole Opry.

In image, Travis is a country anomaly: fine-featured and delicate-looking, with a slanting smile and liquid eyes, he looks like a grown-up Huck Finn, or a Saturday matinee cowboy hero, or maybe even a backwoods sprite.

You definitely don’t picture him loading logs onto the pickup or brawling in the roadhouse parking lot. But the grainy voice that comes out sounds as if it belongs to someone altogether older, huskier and more battered by life.

The prevailing mood was upbeat as No. 1 hit followed No. 1 hit, with the pledges of permanence and devotion overshadowing the accounts of regret and revenge. Fiddles and pedal steel set the twangy tone, and Travis tempered his country orthodoxy with a little swing, a little jump blues and a touch of Tin Pan Alley. His one notable departure was a version of Brook Benton’s 1959 R&B; ballad hit “It’s Just a Matter of Time.”

His one misstep was a final encore trilogy of “Dixie,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “All My Trials,” offered before an Old Glory backdrop. It was like a bad dream mashing Merle Haggard together with Neil Diamond, and it represented a leap from the genuine and intimate to the facile and grandiose that even someone as gifted as Travis couldn’t make.

If Travis evokes a Spencer Tracy comparison, K. T. Oslin came on like a brassy Rosalind Russell, a big-voiced pop belter whose music often touches down far from any country motifs. Like Travis, Oslin--whose primary strength is her songwriting--goes against country stereotypes: She’s not young, she’s not petite, and she’s certainly not pliant.

In fact, Oslin represents an almost frighteningly aggressive new country woman, ogling younger men and requesting “round the clock lovin’.” Her stage persona was appropriately determined and defiant, and like Travis she clearly establishes special bonds with her audience.