O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Jones, Twitty Have a Good, Old Boy Time

Robert Browning, the late-19th-Century poet who said “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be,” would have been less optimistic if he had been trying to make a living on the late-20th-Century pop-entertainment scene.

But country music, like the blues, is a pop sector where growing old is no crime. Together, George Jones, 60, and Conway Twitty, 58, have been walking the earth 20 years longer than the U.S. Senate delegation from their adoptive home state, Tennessee (Albert Gore is 43, James Sasser is 55). Jones, with his creases and wrinkles born of hard living, looks like the most care-worn Southerner since Jimmy Carter. And if Billy Graham ever needs a break, he might call on Twitty to stand in and provide that distinguished, graying-but-bushy-haired look at a revival meeting.

It’s questionable whether the best is yet to be commercially for Jones and Twitty, each of whom has scored 63 Top Ten singles on the Billboard country charts. But their sold-out double bill Saturday night at the Celebrity Theatre showed that there are still plenty of fans willing to keep coming back as Jones and Twitty grow older.

Twitty’s romantic ballads provoked appreciative shrieks from some of the women in the audience. A rich, grainy texture has settled into his voice without blunting its authority, making some of his songs sound more deeply expressive than on the original recordings.

Jones, though apologizing for a flu-diminished voice, had enough left to drive home a couple of ballads with the high, keening lamentation that is his trademark. Nor did the flu stop him from being a playful, if blarney-prone, host during his 50-minute opening set.

Twitty’s hourlong performance carried some freight that can weigh on a country show: occasional Vegas-style posturing, and scrubbed, tinkling and whooshing synthesized keyboard sounds. But the overall conviction of his singing, and the focus on musical strengths rather than show biz glitter, rendered these problems as relatively minor.

The show bogged down once, during a ponderous, drama-milking version of the Bette Midler vehicle “The Rose.” Twitty also went overboard at the end of a set-closing hymn, when he struck a prolonged pose under a spotlight that cut faintly through darkness, as if he were standing in the eye of God. But aside from that excess, Twitty made the song a convincing sinner’s prayer for divine help.

For the most part, Twitty delivered a rapidly paced, musically varied hour. He started with hits from the ‘60s and ‘70s that were more steeped in country tradition--including a nice honky-tonk lament, “Fifteen Years Ago.” Turning to his pop-tinged ‘80s material, he was helped by a five-man band that sounded studio-perfect in its playing and backing harmonies.

While on the smooth side, the newer numbers weren’t slickly superficial, thanks to the soulful edge that Twitty brought to songs like “She’s Got a Man on Her Mind” and “That’s My Job.” Country radio is soaked with treacly, incredibly phony songs about sainted daddies but in “That’s My Job,” Twitty offered a sincere and moving ode to fatherhood. He sang it with tremendous feeling, but unfortunately he didn’t sing it all, leaving out the third verse that completes the tale.

Twitty was the strong, silent (but warmly smiling) type, speaking up only briefly to introduce his latest single (Jones and Twitty both played only one song from their respective new albums). Jones, in marked contrast, was chatty and amiably easygoing, flattering the audience at every turn and buttering it up with insincere blarney like “You’re so wonderful, I’m liable to stay here till 2 or 3 in the morning.”

Some of that chat may have allowed Jones to pace himself on a night when he wasn’t at his best (apologizing, Jones told the audience that because of “that old flu bug, we’re not gonna sound quite the way we want to sound”). He also fell back on his band, working a couple of instrumentals into the set, and turning over the vocals at one point to guitarist Jerry Reid who sang a serviceable rendition of Merle Haggard’s “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink.”

When Jones himself took over on such up-tempo songs as “The Race Is On” and “The One I Loved Back Then,” his voice lacked the strength to compete with the band (although he still managed some crowd-pleasing, humorous dives to the exaggerated bassy bottom of his range).

But it’s the hurt-stricken ballads that have made Jones one of the definitive country singers, and he came through splendidly on “Bartender’s Blues” and “A Picture of Me (Without You),” drawing cheers for the pained, lonesome cries that are his trademark. Even on a so-so night, Jones had managed to provide at least a couple of fine moments.

Jones’ set also included what must have been one of the least musical but most charming duets of his career: a creaky run through “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” in which he was joined by Joshua McBride, a tiny 6-year-old Canadian boy. Jones set up the tune in a way that suggested he was just having some offbeat, impromptu fun with one of his youngest fans, and the audience played along, cheering the boy’s enthusiasm (if not his pitch).

Afterward, though, Jones mentioned in passing that a Canadian organization called Dream Makers had set up the musical encounter. That was the only clue Jones gave that what had seemed like a lark was really quite serious--the granting of a dying child’s wish.

The boy--and the audience--deserved to have the moment be fun, not tragic, and Jones made certain that it was fun.