O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Kershaw Plays Half a Set in the Twilight Zone

Suppose that on one of his many drunken nights in the mid-’70s, George Jones missed the turn-off for the Palomino Club and ended up staggering into the Forum on stage with Kansas, Journey, Styx or whatever overblown corporate rock band might have been playing there at the time. During its weirder moments Monday night, Sammy Kershaw’s 65-minute early set at the Crazy Horse was something like that fantasy.

Kershaw started his show in a deceptively predictable manner by playing half a dozen songs from his gold debut album, “Don’t Go Near the Water.” Six songs and 30 minutes into the set, he had performed all four of his hit singles--”Cadillac Style,” “Yard Sale,” “Anywhere But Here” and “Don’t Go Near the Water”--and one couldn’t help but wonder what Kershaw had saved for the remainder of his set. It was at that point that the evening began to slip into the Twilight Zone.

Kershaw, who never lowered his voice all night but tended to shout at his audience as though he were a carnival barker or a backwoods preacher, began to rant and rave about his five main influences: Hank Williams, the late honky-tonk singer Mel Street, Bugs Bunny, Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and, above all others, George Jones.

Although he didn’t manage to work any numbers by Street, Williams, or Bunny into his 13-song set, Kershaw paid tribute to Jones and Van Zant by juxtaposing his different influences in a way that was about as smooth and subtle as continents crashing together.

With a taped gospel chorus singing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” in the background, Kershaw launched into a psychedelic version of Jones’ “White Lightnin.’ ” Kershaw sang Jones’ classic with plenty of verve and ear-catching vocal acrobatics. For some inexplicable reason, though, he undercut the whole backwoods flavor of the song by using a taped echo effect.

Kershaw’s tribute to Van Zant was even stranger. Rather than playing one of the many great Skynyrd originals, Kershaw chose to honor Van Zant with Merle Haggard’s “Honky Tonk Nighttime Man,” which Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded for its 1977 album, “Street Survivors.” The result was Kershaw covering Skynyrd covering Haggard.

Kershaw topped off the evening by reprising “Cadillac Style” and “Anywhere But Here”--note for note and gesture for gesture as he had performed them earlier in his set. He also went through the same exhaustive list of thank-yous (Mercury/PolyGram Records, radio, TNN, CMT, the fans, God, his band) twice in the hour.

The nadir, though, was Kershaw’s versions of two ‘70s-rock classics: Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” (Kershaw’s favorite song) and Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page.” If Kershaw had performed “Dust in the Wind” as a simple country song, he might have made the number effective. Instead Kershaw and his backing group, Cadillac, puffed it up with even more instrumental bombast than the original. The swirl of keyboards and whine of guitars all but buried Kershaw’s Jones-influenced vocals in a dense instrumental extravaganza.

If Kershaw’s version of “Dust in the Wind” was bizarre, his reading of Seger’s “Turn the Page” was simply dull. The anthem of life on the road has been performed effectively by a number of country artists (most notably Marshall Chapman) but Kershaw failed to capture either the world-weariness or the humor of the song.

Not all Kershaw’s covers missed the mark, however. Kershaw and his six-piece band turned in a rousing version of the Cajun classic “Big Mamou.”

“Since I’m from southwest Louisiana,” Kershaw, who is not related to Ragin’ Cajun Doug, yelled to introduce the song, “people are always asking me ‘Do you do Cajun music?’ No, we don’t, but we did work up a countrified version of ‘Big Mamou.’ ”

Sparked by the honky-tonk piano of keyboardist Rick Gilbert and by lots of country-rock steel-guitar and electric-guitar licks, Kershaw’s rockabilly version of “Big Mamou” was a much more powerful mix of styles than his attempts to cover ‘70s rock.

Although Kershaw might be awarded a badge of courage for his efforts to wed twangy country vocals to pompous mainstream rock, he is far more effective when he sticks closely to his country and Cajun roots.