COUNTRY MUSIC REVIEW : McDowell Performance Turns Into Party, Complete With Pizza

There were people in Ronnie McDowell’s audience Monday who could sing better than he did. His bass player does a better Elvis imitation. None of his cover songs come close to the inspiration of the original versions, and if McDowell’s own hits never had been, the history of country music wouldn’t be particularly retarded by their absence.

But whatever that rare spark is that defines an entertainer, the singer’s performance at the Crazy Horse Steak House and Saloon left no doubt that he’s plugged into the main generator.

While any number of performers have faked a semblance of glee using the audience-participation, classics-medley methods McDowell employed Monday, his two-hour late show quickly took on the spirit of a genuine, and uproarious, party. The crucial difference between his effort and others, perhaps, was that no one seemed to enjoy the party more than McDowell.

His early show had been recorded for a Westwood One Network broadcast, and it’s likely the radio audience will be hearing something more of a standard, well-ordered, product-pumping set. In any event, McDowell and his four-piece band certainly weren’t having any more of that in the second show. Displaying a youthful exuberance that ranks somewhere between Jerry Mathers and Jonathan Richman, McDowell acted like a kid let out for recess, dancing and mugging, telling jokes and cutting up with his band members.

From the opening Sun Studio version of Roy Brown’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” McDowell paid only scant attention to his own songs, concentrating instead on romps through the catalogues of Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Elvis, Marty Robbins, the Drifters, George Jones, Hank Williams and Jiminy Cricket, the latter represented by “When You Wish Upon a Star” from “Pinocchio.”

Nearly as often, McDowell coaxed vocals from his band members and the audience, and even got his graying, business-suited road manager (Joe Meador, who also co-writes many of McDowell’s hits) on stage to rip through James Brown’s “I Feel Good.” That song came after the pizza arrived, but somewhat before the shots of Jack Daniels and strawberry daiquiris circulated on stage. The medium pepperoni was delivered mid-show to McDowell by a Domino’s delivery boy, and if it was a pre-arranged gag, McDowell at least appeared genuinely surprised.

Innuendo ran thick through some of his audience gab, though it was easily matched by some thoroughly non sequitur, Jack-laden exchanges. A typical dialogue:

McDowell: “Where are you from?

Plastered Audience Folk: “We’re from Canada.”

McDowell: “Where in Canada?”

Plastered Audience Folk: “Texas.”

Wandering into the audience, McDowell had little trouble getting even those less fortified to sing along on “Happy Birthday,” “Dixie,” “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” and other light classics. McDowell’s own musical performance often took a back seat to the playhouse atmosphere, but there were well-harmonized versions of Twitty’s “It’s Only Make Believe” (which he performed twice), and a fine Aaron Neville-esque falsetto vocal on the R&B; ballad “Kiss and Say Goodbye.”

While a few well-honed originals in the set, such as the current “Under These Conditions,” begged for more McDowell-penned company, the reliance on covers was also a bit of a blessing, given the formulaic “Older Women” and current hit “She’s a Little Past Forty” which he performed, and the moribund Elvis tribute “The King Is Gone,” which he mercifully didn’t.