POP MUSIC REVIEW : Kershaw Pays Odd Tribute

Sammy Kershaw started his show at the Crazy Horse predictably enough, playing half a dozen songs from his debut album, “Don’t Go Near the Water.” Thirty minutes into the set he’d performed all four of his country hit singles, at which point the evening began to slip into the Twilight Zone.

Kershaw, who tended to shout at his audience like a carnival barker or a backwoods preacher, paid tribute to several idols, including George Jones and the late Ronnie Van Zant, but he juxtaposed them in a way that was about as smooth and subtle as continents crashing together. He did a psychedelic version of Jones’ “White Lightnin’,” undercutting the song’s backwoods flavor with an echo effect. And he chose to honor Van Zant with Merle Haggard’s “Honky Tonk Nighttime Man,” which Lynyrd Skynyrd once recorded. So instead of Sammy Kershaw doing Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kershaw covered Lynyrd Skynyrd covering Haggard.

The Louisiana native topped off the evening by reprising note for note and gesture for gesture his hits “Cadillac Style” and “Anywhere but Here,” which he had performed earlier in his set. The nadir, though, were his versions of Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind,” puffed up with even more instrumental bombast than the original, and Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page,” which was simply dull. Kershaw was far more effective sticking closely to his country and Cajun roots than trying to wed twangy country vocals to pompous mainstream rock.