POP MUSIC REVIEW : ‘90’s Daniels Could Use Intro to 1973 Model

Those with a fondness for inane novelty songs might recall Charlie Daniels’ first chart entry, “Uneasy Rider” from 1973, in which Daniels talks, a la “A Boy Named Sue,” of the intolerance he faced in a redneck bar when they found there was long hair under his hat.

While Daniels still sports both long hair and a beard, the head beneath them has evidently hardened so much that if the Charlie Daniels of ’73 were to fall into the hands of today’s Daniels, he would most likely end up lynched and hanging from a tree.

And Daniels made it clear in his late show at the Crazy Horse Steak House on Monday that he has been measuring a lot of necks lately. After railing at “pantywaist” judges in the current “A Simple Man,” he dispensed formulas for Constitution-free terminal justice for suspected drug dealers, household intruders and sundry miscreants. Also make room on the hanging tree for Gorbachev, congressmen, “the intelligentsia” and anyone else that don’t fit, ‘cause old Charlie’s had it up to here.

Why, a fella can scarcely have an innocent drink or two in a gay bar--so he related in “Uneasy Rider ‘88”--without having some guy up and touch him. After having a manly barf at the mere thought of it, according to Daniels’ recitation, he and his buddy had no choice but to punch out every homo in the place.

This being the U.S.A., where even canned lard is guaranteed freedom of speech, it may not be a critic’s place to fault Daniels for the hate-based content of his songs. Hate sells, as everyone from Joe Goebbels to Andrew Dice Clay has learned. Daniels, however, has evidently been so busy duking cross-dressers and lynching malcontents in his mind that he has lost his muse.

There was time when he was a musician , making significant contributions to records by everyone from Marty Robbins to Bob Dylan. On his own, Daniels’ hot guitar and fiddle work staked out a place in the ‘70s Southern rock movement headed by the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

On Monday, though, there was no fire to his few curt solos. Instead, they were merely consonant with a thoroughly lifeless, calculated performance. Daniels made several protests of being just one of the “common folk” during his show. But, rather than celebrate any such bond with a lively, free-ranging performance, his chief concern seemed to be making sure his audience didn’t get one second more than an hour of music.

His show, including encore call, lasted exactly that. And--is this callous or what?--he not only subjected his fans to that unyielding schedule, he had a large digital clock on stage, so the crowd could watch their $29.50 ticket price tick by like idling minutes on a Manhattan taxi meter. (Considering that a quarter of the set was filled with vocals delegated to his band members and a drum solo, Daniels’ appearance clocked out at about 65 cents per minute.)

Along with his paeans to mob justice and gay-bashing, Daniels delivered the generic country-rock “Drinking My Baby Goodbye,” a slobbering kiss-up to country disc jockeys on “Mister DJ,” a moribund version of the anthem “The South’s Gonna Do It Again” and the banjo-plucked “Rocky Top.” Only on the encore, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” did Daniels do much solo playing, and even then his fiddle work was more flash than fire.

He also performed his 1974 “Long-Haired Country Boy” after first explaining that he had changed a few lines, so as not to give the impression that he favored fast living. It’s a wise move. After all, you never know when some bearded avenger, looming like a water bed stuffed into a pair of Levis, might be waiting with a rope.