Yoakam: Unplugged but Charged

It’s nice to know that if sunspots ever compel us to go without electricity, some of our musicians won’t be at a loss about what to do. There’s been a trend in the last couple of years for performers to strum their stuff acoustically--a la MTV’s “Unplugged” program--and some, at least, have the ability to make the attempt more than a novelty.

Two years ago, Emmylou Harris jettisoned her tremendous Hot Band to pursue acoustic bluegrass-dyed music with an equally sympatico outfit called the Nash Ramblers. This week, Dwight Yoakam is following suit with a series of four (sold-out) evenings at the Coach House.

At the first show, Tuesday, he and his group might have been dubbed the Nash Metropolitans after the Rambler’s little brother, an endearing car so small it could easily navigate supermarket aisles. Where Harris’ Nash Ramblers are a true band, committed to the long haul of the road, Yoakam’s is something he picked up for a spot of leisurely cruising around town, as a diversion between recording dates and touring with his electric band.

It’s understandable, then, that the trio didn’t match the rich arrangements and near-magical empathy of Harris’ band (even though both groups boast Dobro wonder Al Perkins). Which isn’t to say they weren’t entirely swell, with plenty of hot licks set flying amid a loose front-porch mood. Along with Perkins on Dobro and banjo, the players are Scott Joss from Yoakam’s standard group on fiddle and mandolin, and Orange County’s multitalented James Intveld--himself a highly capable front man--on stand-up bass.

Yoakam certainly seemed to be enjoying the informal setting. Though he became a country star by way of the L.A. scene, he grew up in rural Kentucky. He has always called his brand of country “hillbilly music,” and that title never seemed so persuasive as in this acoustic format, where even Dave Alvin’s once-rockin’ “Long White Cadillac” took on a bluegrass feel.

In his hour-and-45-minute show, Yoakam covered a lot of ground, including his own “What I Don’t Know,” “I Sang Dixie,” “Nothing’s Changed Here,” “You’re the One” and the maudlin “Johnson’s Love,” and his collaboration with Roger Miller, “It Only Hurts When I Cry.”

Perhaps the strongest of Yoakam’s own songs was “Miner’s Prayer,” dedicated to his late grandfather who had been a coal miner. The song was given a reverent bluegrass reading as Joss’ high harmonies blended with Yoakam’s plaint in a manner that recalled the great Stanley Brothers. Yoakam had sung the song with Ralph Stanley recently at a taping for TNN’s “American Music Shop,” due to air in May.

Tuesday Yoakam also performed the Stanleys’ “Down Where the River Bends,” his slippery voice clearly taking pleasure in snaking around such words as sycamore. (It’s curious: Years can go by without hearing the Stanleys even mentioned around here, and just the night previous, Ralph Stanley himself had appeared at Laguna Niguel’s Shade Tree Stringed Instruments).

If there was any debit to the evening’s bluegrass bent, it was that Yoakam was evidently so caught up in the mountain mood that his pronounced yelp-’n’-twang vocals reached an extreme: On some of his numbers, he might as well have been singing in Egyptian. Even on familiar stuff such as his “Guitars, Cadillacs,” it was nigh on impossible to make out a word.

Stylistically, the singer owes his biggest debt to Merle Haggard, as he acknowledged with a brace of Haggard’s tunes including “Ramblin’ Fever” (which he introduced as “a song I used to do when I got paid a lot less”), “Holding Things Together” and “Sing Me Back Home,” which featured a shimmering, pure-water Dobro solo from Perkins that dove-tailed into a keening fiddle solo from Joss.

Other nods to the past included Hank Williams’ “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It” and a pair of Stonewall Jackson hits, “Life to Go” (penned by George Jones) and “Smoke Along the Track.”

There were a few flubs and false starts (as well there might be at a front porch gathering). It took some time, for instance, for everyone to agree on the correct key of the Stanley tune. And “You’re the One” got a mite out of hand in its tempo, prompting Yoakam to halt it (“that started sounding like ‘Gentle on My Mind,’ ” he announced). Whereupon they had another go at it and came up with a slow, spare version that brought out the song’s ache.

Though Yoakam did smile and sashay a bit for the crowd, he chiefly took a low-keyed approach to his stagecraft, performing from his seat much of the time. There was a loud contingent in the audience, though, of folks who clearly didn’t want to see him unplugged so much as undressed. “Take your coat off!” and “God, you’re cute!” shouted some. “Take your jeans off!” and “Shake it!” shouted others. It’s great to know that a century of social change has earned women the right to be just as crass and superficial as men can be.

* Dwight Yoakam plays Friday and Saturday nights at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Both shows are sold out. Information: (714) 496-8930.