POP MUSIC REVIEW : Carlson Hits Some Bumps in Solo Outing

Highway 101 is a curious name for a country band, given that it’s a determinately California freeway best - known for running smack through Hollywood. It turned out, however, to be a fitting name for the group Highway 101, considering the band was a prefab outfit pieced together by a manager rather than a musician.

So it wasn’t as if singer Paulette Carlson was throwing away years of shared honky-tonkin’ experience when she split from Highway 101 two years ago. What she did throw away, evidently, was name recognition. While Highway 101 keeps blandly rolling along with a new singer, Carlson seems to have been relegated to a neglected rural route.

Decidedly fewer people attended Carlson’s show Monday at the Crazy Horse Steak House than turned out for the repaved Highway 101’s appearance there a few months back. Although there are far greater injustices than that in the music world, Carlson’s 14-song performance did prove that she was the source of her old band’s style and personality, and that she is the one who deserves its following.

Garbed in what could have been a wedding gown, except for the spandex slacks (she claimed to have bought the outfit at South Coast Plaza that afternoon), Carlson looked more than a little like Stevie Nicks. That comparison carries over to her singing: Her edgy, quavering voice sounds as if it could have been lifted off a Fleetwood Mac album, although a light twang fortunately replaces the fairy-dust pretensions of Nicks’ efforts.

Carlson and her five-piece band competently tackled some of her old Highway 101 hits, including “Honky Tonk Heart,” “Somewhere Tonight,” “(Do You Love Me) Just Say Yes” and “The Bed You Made for Me.” That last song--Highway 101’s first hit in 1986, and the first song Carlson wrote in Nashville a decade ago--is full of the anger of a spurned lover, and it may be the strongest tune from her catalogue.

One advantage of her new outfit is that it doesn’t engage in the distracting mugging and hamming of her old band. On “Whiskey, If You Were a Woman,” though, Carlson herself undermined the serious intent of the song by clowning and kick-stepping through it.

Better than her oldies romp was the material she performed from her current “Love Goes On” solo album. The single “I’ll Start With You” proved a catchy tune about rebuilding a damaged trust and love. “It’s Too Bad” and “Where Are You Coming From” were enjoyable if none too memorable, and “The Chain Just Broke” sounded thoroughly Fleetwood Mac-ish.

The standout was the Carlson-penned “Falling in Love for a Lifetime,” a tune she said Highway 101 was unwilling to record. The romantic ballad provided both a fine setting for her distinctive voice and the sole occasion of the evening when she seemed to connect emotionally with the lyrics.

A less-than-capacity turnout and polite audience response to her set may mean that Carlson has a lot of highway to cover before she finds her old popularity again. Highway 101 as well may be having a rougher go of it: One person in attendance Monday was Country Hall of Fame member Cliffie Stone, whose radio and TV shows and band helped establish country music in Los Angeles in the ‘40s and ‘50s. He’s also the father of Highway 101 member Curtis Stone.

At one point in the show, Carlson asked, “Cliffie, where’s Curtis tonight?”

Retorted Dad: “I hope he’s got a job somewhere!”