POP MUSIC REVIEW : Gary Morris Is Country, Even Minus a Twang

Gary Morris is a strange breed of country renegade, bowing to Broadway rather than Bakersfield, having assayed leads in “Les Miserables” and “La Boheme.” While other country originals spend their spare time in prisons and detox wards, Morris has inhabited TV soap operas, attaining a hunkdom that fits perfectly with the niche he has carved in country music.

Cynical observers might presume that Morris’ open-shirted balladry was custom-designed to snare a waiting audience: all the wives abandoned to their soaps and romance novels while their husbands hunker down with Hank Jr. and a six-pack.

But, Morris’ performance Monday evening at the Crazy Horse Steak House gave the impression that he is following his own muse, converge though it often might with mainstream crossover styles. Like the novels and soaps, Morris’ recordings veer towards the overly dramatic and the unabashedly romantic, but on stage he got the notion across that unabashed romanticism isn’t such a bad idea.

Newly shorn and shaven, Morris performed his first eight numbers solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Except for the overwrought Gothic-shaded death tome “South December Road,” the solo setting lent a close, personal feel to the songs. With a voice that’s a bit like a cross between Glen Campbell and Kenny Loggins, but given an operatic range and power, Morris has the ability to deliver his songs in aria overdrive. But, wisely, he took a less-rarefied, more human, approach to most of his songs. While his voice may lack the worldly, lived-in quality that makes better communicators of less-gifted singers, it was well-suited to the romanticized bent of his songs.

“Leave Me Lonely,” an ode to fidelity, and “Bread and Water” both expressed love as an absolute, but Morris’ low-keyed delivery treated that absolute as a reality rather than an ideal. The beautifully crafted “Finishing Touches,” meanwhile, reached into the difficult, cluttered choices of love.

Things turned a bit less personal and more generic when Morris was joined by his quartet for the second half of the performance. Melissa Etheridge’s slinky “Chrome Plated Heart” became bland crossover rock, while the closing “The Wind Beneath My Wings” had a bluster worthy of Bert Lahr. In between, though, Morris offered two new, unreleased songs: “Time Will Tell” (a jumbled, but well-intentioned bit of social commentary) and a touching song addressed to his 16-year-old son, about the differences between generations.

Morris also sang the now-expected “Bring Him Home” from “Les Miserables,” with show-stopping effect. The musical-theater piece fit seamlessly into the show, perhaps because there was nothing to the other songs that one would necessarily call country.

But since country music has now seemingly become a crowded home for the mainstream-pop music that has been shut out of the rock stations--remember when the Stones, Glen Campbell and James Brown coexisted on play lists?--there’s little point in deriding Morris for the lack of twang in his music. That his voice conveys some life and emotion is sufficient credential for praise.