O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Forget Nashville; Desert Rose May Be Country Band of ‘90s

As much as Nashville is the home of country music, it may be just as remarkable for the prodigal sons it has cast out. From the Bakersfield crowd through the outlaw and new traditionalist movements, the city’s music establishment has been slow to welcome any new vitality in the music, and there may be no one more familiar with that slowness than Desert Rose Band singer Chris Hillman.

After an incandescent new song, “Another Lifetime,” during the band’s late show Monday at Santa Ana’s Crazy Horse Steak House, did Hillman sound just a bit bitter as he shouted: “That’s not country music! You can’t play that music in Nashville!”?

Sure, Music City’s Country Music Assn. finally got around to nominating the Desert Rose Band in three categories this year, but it has only been about 21 years since Hillman and his fellow Byrds first kicked on Nashville’s door with the seminal country-rock album “Sweetheart of the Rodeo.”

Perhaps to drive a point home, the band followed Hillman’s outburst Monday with three Bluegrass-tinged numbers--including its own “Time Between” and the Osborne Bros.’ “Once More”--that were about as country as you can get without worrying about deer-tick Lyme disease.

With Hillman and guitarists Herb Pedersen and John Jorgenson erecting flawless three-part harmonies, and Jorgenson and steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness trading devilishly fast, song-hugging breaks, the group clearly didn’t need any outside ratification to know it is onto a good thing.

Indeed, the Crazy Horse show, particularly the several new songs from an upcoming album, suggested the 4-year-old group (rounded out by bassist Bill Bryson and drummer Steve Duncan) is shifting into a higher gear. Although always possessed of remarkable vocal and musical prowess, the band’s live shows haven’t always connected on an emotional level. Monday, though, they practically burned the floorboards out from under them with a 22-song set that drew two deafening encore calls.

Even Hillman, whose clear tenor vocals previously seemed to want for the consuming passion or charismatic flaws that so marked the singing of his Byrds and Burrito Brothers partner Gram Parsons, loosened up and howled a bit on the encores of the Burritos’ “Christine’s Tune” and “Sin City.”

The band ranged through a variety of styles, from the Bluegrass tunes to Pedersen’s version of Buck Owens’ “Hello Trouble” to a Louvin Bros. country shuffle to Dylan’s “You Ain’t Going Nowhere.”

If there is a signature sound to the Desert Rose Band, it is in the tasteful inclusion of ‘60s British Invasion touches into their arrangements. Although he can twang with the best of them (using an ultra-twangy six-string bass on some songs), Orange County-bred guitarist Jorgenson also added chiming 12-string guitar parts to “One Step Forward” and “Summer Wind” and the unique British Vox vibrato sound to “I Still Believe in You,” which also featured a moving ballad vocal from Hillman.

Songs from the new LP (due in January) included the driving, anti-drug “Darkness on the Playground,” the country-pop “The Story of Love” and a banjo-powered Pedersen tune, “Fooled Again.” Combined with the group’s considerable legacy--stretching back through Hillman’s pioneering ‘60s work, Maness’ stint with Buck Owens, and vocal arranger Pedersen’s work with Emmylou Harris and others--the Desert Rose Band may just become the country group of the ‘90s.