POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Grand Salute to the King

Sporting everything from sharp ‘50s suits to jeans and rumpled T-shirts, and singing songs ranging from rich and resonant to slight and silly, a parade of L.A. musicians paid homage to the King on Wednesday at Club Lingerie.

The fifth annual Elvis Presley Birthday Party was a little slower than usual in picking up steam, but when it hit its stride the benefit show yielded its customary rewards: a chance to sample new talents, to enjoy familiar faces in informal circumstances, and to discover new twists in Presley’s ever-unfolding legacy.

The prevailing performance and fashion style was period-faithful (the Sprague Brothers looked like a couple of Ralph Kramdens with pompadours), but some of the songs became vehicles for effective personal expression.

Rockabilly gal Dee Lannon earned the evening’s first whoops of approval with her powerful, country-tinged vocal on “Trying to Get to You,” and Los Lobos’ Cesar Rosas joined the quartet the Blazers for a soulful stretch that recalled the Lobos/Blasters axis of the early ‘80s.

Bucking the rootsy tide represented by such L.A. rockabilly mainstays as Ronnie Mack and Ray Campi were power-poppers Peter Holsapple and Dwight Twilley. Their provocative twists demonstrated the value of changing the pace.

Twilley turned “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” into a weird exercise in echoing vocal throb, while Holsapple’s “The Edge of Reality,” a piece of bizarre psychedelvis, prompted organizer and emcee Art Fein to take the stage and inquire “What kind of Elvis song is that?” Answer: It’s from the dream sequence in the 1968 movie “Live a Little Love a Little.”

Now that’s taking care of business.