Pop : Nils Lofgren Goes It Alone--Almost

There aren’t many artists who can bring a Beatle to the stage and yet manage to disappoint the crowd. Singer-guitarist Nils Lofgren’s recruitment of Ringo Starr to join him at the Roxy on Friday was a letdown only because of even greater expectations generated by the famous company Lofgren has kept professionally.

During the past two decades the one-time Wunderkind has toured and recorded extensively with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen, cementing a reputation as one of the business’s most in-demand sidemen. Though those two stars failed to show--despite the rumors wending their way through the crowd--Starr, with whom Lofgren has also toured, obliged with a brief stint on the drums (oddly, he sat out Lofgren’s sinuous version of the Beatles’ “Any Time at All”).

Lofgren’s ongoing solo career has never garnered the acclaim his collaborators enjoy. At the Roxy he demonstrated once again that his unflinchingly weighty rock--closer to Young’s “Ragged Glory” than Springsteen’s “Glory Days”--deserves a wider audience.

Lofgren delivered material from all phases of his work, including a charged rendition of his early group Grin’s “Moon Tears,” a somewhat successfully reworked “I Came to Dance,” and several songs from his latest album, “Silver Lining.” The new tunes had more immediate impact live than on record, gaining substance from Lofgren’s glorious guitar breaks, which had members of the capacity crowd craning their necks to see his fingers move.