POP MUSIC REVIEW : Lauderdale Pays Homage to His Country Heroes

Jim Lauderdale mentioned midway through his Palomino set Thursday night that his heroes were--no big surprises here--George Jones and Gram Parsons. It wasn’t just a passing remark: On hand for this showcase he happened to have Parsons’ old duet partner, Emmylou Harris, to help him sing a 1977 Jones/Tammy Wynette hit, “Near You,” which is about as close to total wish fulfillment as a budding country hitmaker can come.

The two antecedents cited are pretty common references, but Lauderdale does both forebears terribly proud. Like Parsons, Lauderdale is a great trained-on-the-classics country songwriter; like Jones, a natural, make-it-look-easy singer. His own “King of Broken Hearts,” written as a tribute to Jones and also sung Thursday with Harris, is dead-on homage, right down to the way its self-pity is relegated to the third-person form. (“ He’s the king of broken hearts”? Yeah, sure.)

Another inevitable reference point: Dwight Yoakam, who also came at the Nashville Establishment from a base in L.A.’s “town south of Bakersfield” scene with a Reprise debut. In his favor and distinguishing him from Yoakam, he has a lower, comfier vocal range that registers rock soulfulness as well as the requisite country laconicism, and a less rigid sense of “new traditionalism,” mixing ‘50s Western rootsiness with some of the pop-encroaching touches of the not-so-bad Nashvillian ‘60s.

Like most L.A. boys going national, Lauderdale tends to rock out a little more live than on record. But much of the material from his excellent “Planet of Love” album--co-produced by Rodney Crowell, and due in stores Tuesday--had the easy, familiar feel of instant classicism--the lovelorn “I Wasn’t Fooling Around” sounds like a song that ought to be a country charter in any decade. Here’s to a long run.