O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Solo Wynonna Puts Her Big Voice to Limited Use

Hearing a singer as gifted and tasteful as Wynonna Judd,the first impulse is to start bandying all sorts of admiring words.

But with Judd launching her solo career after being partners with her mom in country music’s most successful duo, maybe it’s more important to emphasize a single word of advice: stretch.

Judd did what she does flawlessly Saturday night at the Pacific Amphitheatre, singing with power and warmth, sass and sensitivity.

What makes Wynonna special is her firm grasp on blues and soul roots. It allows her to take what’s nominally country music and make it sound like something Bonnie Raitt could do if she wanted to shake a bit of porch dust off her R&B; and dab on some polish instead.

In a welcome departure from the country norm, that blues consciousness also paved the way for Judd to racially integrate her band. Three of the eight singers and players were black, including two fine backup singers and bassist Willie Weeks, a stalwart of many recording sessions in many styles.

One song, “She Is His Only Need,” showed the breadth of Judd’s talent. Her throaty blues touches recalled Raitt, but she also was able to climb high into the bel canto ether, reaching some plaintive, pure tones that brought Judy Collins to mind. That is a stretch, and anyone who can pull it off has the power to explore great expanses of the pop universe.

But that is precisely where Wynonna seems limited. At this early stage in her solo career, she hasn’t revealed yet whether she has the ambition to take risks with her material, to embrace the twists and rough edges, the complexities and ambiguities that make for really memorable music.

Certainly no such tendencies emerged during the Judds’ six-album career (not counting two greatest hits collections and a Christmas record), during which lead singer Wynonna and her harmony-singing mother, Naomi, offered abundant charm and vocal chops but didn’t exactly push the artistic envelope.

The “Wynonna” album, the solo debut that brings Judd’s blues influences to the foreground, isn’t heavy on vision and complexity, either. Each song conveys a basic mood or emotion without much in the way of imagery, narrative complication or vibrant language. As she sang nine of the album’s 10 songs during her show (along with five Judds oldies), Wynonna painted their primary emotional colors with assurance and conviction. But the subtler shadings needed to convey mystery and complication are missing from her material, and her singing didn’t stretch to reveal any dimensions that weren’t explicit in the songs as they are written.

As much as “She Is His Only Need” showcased the reach of Judd’s talent, it also underscored the one-dimensional quality of the songs she chooses (she does not write her own material). The song is essentially a knock-off of “Love at the Five & Dime,” the poignant Nanci Griffith story song that became Kathy Mattea’s breakthrough hit. Griffith’s song acquaints you intimately with a couple as they move through a lifetime of love. The tale becomes not only warm, but poignant, because it’s a love not immune to pain and loss, those components of any lifetime truly rendered. Judd’s reverent song gives us sugary stick figures moving through an unruffled lifetime together--a doting, perfect hubby and his lucky bride.

If Judd wants to keep playing it safe, she can keep doing album after album of songs by the usual Nashville grist-merchants she mainly employs. Or she can seek out songs that challenge, by writers who have more in mind than scoring the next hit.

For now, Judd seems awfully immersed in the hits-come-first mentality.

Sounding a more personal note, Judd did allude to the doubts and sadness attached to her transition from daughter in a duo to a singer on her own--a transition hastened and saddened by her mother’s chronic hepatitis. Judd was able to throw off those moments of melancholy with confidence and playful swagger in rocking, bluesy numbers .

She structured her show well, balancing ballads with high-energy songs, and building to a strong homestretch that proceeded from the rocking gospel workout “Live With Jesus,” to the upbeat pairing of “A Little Bit of Love (Goes A Long, Long Way)” and, as an encore, “No One Else on Earth.” She closed with a pretty valediction, “It’s Never Easy to Say Goodbye.”

Again, though--Wynonna needed to stretch. Her show ended after only 14 songs, in less than 70 minutes.

Second-billed Merle Haggard missed the show on doctor’s orders because of a bad back, according to his office. That gave opener Billy Dean, one of country’s parade of newcomers with movie star looks, a full hour to prove that ‘70s-style soft-rock isn’t dead, it’s just moved to Nashville.

In the hands of Dean and his band, that old soft-rock with a twang is just as tuneful, crisp, clean and prettily harmonized as ever--and just as pleasantly bland. To make it clear exactly where he’s coming from, Dean performed a Dave Mason oldie, “We Just Disagree,” and a couple of James Taylor nuggets, “Steamroller Blues” and “You’ve Got A Friend.” Dean’s own material tended toward the sentimental and homiletic, with songs lamenting lost childhood innocence and the passing of old-time Americana like trains and hobos. Dean lifted the intensity level for “Only Here For A While,” a gospel-tinged exhortation to live life to its fullest.

“You’ve Got A Friend,” performed as a solo acoustic encore, betrayed a slick streak in Dean, whose stage patter tended toward contrivance. His reading was a smarmy, grandstanding serenade directed, with broad pointing gestures, to the whole audience. Anyone who pledges friendship to 7,000 or 8,000 people simultaneously is sincere about one thing, anyway: advancing his own career.