Sweethearts of the Rodeo Harmonize at Strand

Sisters Kristine Arnold and Janis Gill--better known as the hit country act Sweethearts of the Rodeo--asked the crowd at the Strand in Redondo Beach on Friday how many remembered when the pair used to do their fine harmonizing at pizza parlors in their native Manhattan Beach nearby. A healthy number (including mom and dad) remembered.

OK, so it’s not exactly like Dolly Parton returning to her Tennessee mountain home, but in the now Nashville-based Sweethearts’ world of countrypolitan chic (designer chaps and all), it’ll pass for roots.

In fact, the most notable number of the 65-minute early show wasn’t even a country song at all, but their version of the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine,” which they and their four-man band attacked with vigor and without the kind of evisceration that kind of material usually gets in the hands of country-pop acts. But it’s a long stretch from that to the legacy of the landmark Byrds album from which the duo took its name.