POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Ketchum’s Still Sorting His Path to Country

Hal Ketchum doesn’t come to Nashville by the usual country roads. Born and raised in the Adirondacks of New York, he played R&B; drums as a youth, then moved into the Austin singer-songwriter scene of the early ‘80s. Add Van Morrison and Jonathan Edwards influences to the usual country foundation of Haggard and Jones, and you have the makings of something slightly different.

Performing at the Crazy Horse here on Monday, Ketchum appeared to be still sorting it all out, and in the process turned in an often dynamic, sometimes gripping and occasionally aimless first show.

On record his voice has a melancholy tug and a subtle smokiness, but at the Crazy Horse he exchanged those facets for a more predictable nightclub intensity, despite a few moments of finesse.

When he delivered top-rate originals Ketchum looked like a true contender, especially on “Daddy’s Oldsmobile” in which what sounds like a slice of typical nostalgia carries a very atypical tale of desperation and determination.

Ketchum undermined these powerful moments by stretching the show with too many rocking instrumental excursions. Working in the concentrated vortex of a tight, guitar-bass-drums combo, he worked up some spirited rhythm ecstasies behind Scott Neubert’s heroic lead guitar work before going overboard.

Ketchum also appears Sunday at the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum.