POP MUSIC REVIEW : HeadHunters Do a Lick of Work at the Celebrity Theatre

Usually, when it comes to evaluating the artistic integrity of country bands, one has to consider Waylon Jennings’ question: “Are you sure Hank done it this way?”

With the Kentucky HeadHunters, who stray far from country convention, the answer might lie with an old line from Martin Mull: “I hate to disillusion ya, honey, but it’s just licks off of records that I learned.”

At least the HeadHunters deserve some credit for having a wide-ranging record collection from which to swipe their licks. Their show Friday night at the Celebrity Theatre covered or quoted Hank Williams as well as Cream, Bill Monroe as well as Led Zeppelin, Don Gibson as well as Norman Greenbaum--not to mention some Tex-Mex music and an Aerosmith-style bang-it-with-your-bare-hands drum solo.

The HeadHunters also get points for an interesting, unaffectedly eccentric ensemble look: two strapping biker brothers doing the lead and harmony singing, a bald, bespectacled, bare-shirted drummer with side whiskers worthy of ZZ Top doing the pounding, a pudgy, myopic rhythm guitar player and a small, droopy-looking lead player who’s a close ringer for the bassist from Spinal Tap.

And yes, the HeadHunters showed they could crank like crazy, like any self-respecting boogie band from the South.

What they didn’t show was much originality or depth of feeling. As they spun out all those licks off of records, the HeadHunters lived up to the bar-band ethic of loud, raucous fun and catchy, familiar tunes, but that’s all.

Only a band severely lacking in imagination could cover “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” and not use it as an excuse for a wild-eyed demolition job. Instead of hacking the song to bits, the HeadHunters played a mild, almost reverent version that patted it on its silly, coonskin-capped head. “Spirit in the Sky” and a version of the Eric Clapton arrangement of “Crossroads” were also tepid, by-the-numbers remakes.

That lack of imagination carried over into the band’s cliched, impersonal stage patter (“Hello, California!” “We’re gonna have some fun tonight! We’re gonna tear this place down!” “Put your hands in the air!”) Singer Ricky Lee Phelps had a decidedly literal-minded idea of how to act out a song--when one lyric said “jump” he jumped; when another said “I’m in the money,” he spent a minute or so papering the crowd with play dough.

The HeadHunters managed a few interesting linkages between their hard rock and country sources. Drummer Fred Young launched a good, driving version of the country standard “Oh Lonesome Me” by playing the swarming intro to Zep’s “Rock and Roll,” then repeating the trick by starting off “Diane” with a rhythmic surge copped from “Eight Miles High” or “I Can See for Miles.” The HeadHunters also did a nice job with “My Daddy Was a Milkman,” a humorous ditty fashioned out of a slamming Bo Diddley/”Not Fade Away” beat and George Thorogood-style slide guitar wail.

It wasn’t until the encore that Kentucky HeadHunters played with conviction instead of just for rowdy laughs. “Diane” offered a winsome pop chorus and a hint of wistfulness over lost love, and “Wishin’ Well” was a stormy, anti-materialistic message-rocker with a style and title cribbed from the Free/Bad Company catalogue.

The HeadHunters’ debut album “Pickin’ on Nashville” has sold more than a million copies, and the just-released follow-up “Electric Barnyard” is on the charts as well--proving either that the door is never really closed for a potent bar band with a rootsy sound (witness hits by the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Georgia Satellites), or that the old British Invaders-go-to-Dixie style exemplified by Lynyrd Skynyrd is back in fashion. It’s kind of a shame, though, that success could elude a band like the Nashville-based Jason & the Scorchers, which poured guts and passion into its ferocious rock-country merger (doing it the way Hank might have if he had lived in an age of Marshall stacks). Instead, it has gone to a group that by and large is happy sticking to the Martin Mull principle.

Boy Howdy, based in Los Angeles, played a brief but tasty opening set of country-rock that was a good deal more refined than the HeadHunters, but still boisterous. The highlight: a savvy revamping of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me,” which the four-piece Boy Howdy turned into a speeding country train-rhythm number. It was just the sort of inventive approach to Britrock-meets-country that was missing from the HeadHunters’ show.