POP MUSIC REVIEW : Flu’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Juice Newton : Laryngitis took its toll on her voice and attitude, but her energy on Crazy Horse stage and her arrangements were true to form.

It’s flu season, and many of us are coughing and sniffling around the office. Imagine how much worse it would be if you had to sing, dance and try to act cheerful, as flu-stricken Juice Newton had to at the Crazy Horse on Monday night.

Actually, she kinda flunked in the cheerful department. She was a little cranky, complaining and apologizing throughout the evening.

It was obvious from the opening numbers of her early set--”When Love Comes Around the Bend” from her 1989 album “Ain’t Gonna Cry,” and her chart-topping hit from 1985, “You Make Me Want to Make You Mine”--that her usually powerful voice was at half mast; even in the small room, it barely projected. Her longtime guitarist Otha Young came to the rescue with strong vocal harmonies that managed to carry the songs.

At that point Newton explained that she had laryngitis from a flu her daughter brought home from school. She then managed to make it through her vocally challenging breakthrough hit, “Angel of the Morning,” and she might simply have tried to carry on from there as best she could, but instead she kept reminding the audience of how badly she felt and how sorry she was that she couldn’t perform certain tunes.

The result: Instead of enjoying a show that nonetheless had much to offer, and forgetting their own troubles, the folks in the audience found themselves suffering along.

Too bad, because musically the one-hour, five-minute show--like all of Newton’s at the Crazy Horse--was a lively set of well-chosen songs delivered with plenty of imagination. Newton’s lightweight pop and country hits from the early ‘80s may not constitute the most substantial repertoire around, but it can form the basis for a likable concert.

Newton did 14 songs, mixing some of her trademark hits--”Queen of Hearts,” “Break It to Me Gently,” “Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me”--with new songs and some imaginative covers including Poco’s hit “Crazy Love” from 1979, Queen’s neo-rockabilly “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and Ricky Nelson’s “It’s Late.”

Unlike so many singers who try slavishly to reproduce the sound of the original hits, be they their own or someone else’s, Newton put her stamp on everything. “Crazy Love,” for example, was done with only spare bass and acoustic guitar accompaniment; with vocal help from her bandmates, she recast “It’s Late” as a doo-wop ballad. Singing her 1986 hit “Old Flame,” she replaced the original full band sound with Red Young’s minimal piano work and more of the band’s rich vocal support.

Even with her ailments, Newton was her usual active, kinetic self on stage. Each number was choreographed for visual as well as audio effect: Newton swung her guitar back and forth in synchrony with Young’s during “You Make Me Want to Make You Mine” and lifted her guitar into the air to emphasize the dramatic crescendo of “Angel of the Morning.”

Her five-piece band was excellent. Young was particularly strong, helping to compensate for Newton’s weakened condition with tasteful guitar and mandolin picking as well as his potent supporting vocals (he took over the mike for one number, “Don’t You,” a song he wrote that was a hit for the Forester Sisters).

In all, the evening was as enjoyable as an evening can be with someone calling such attention to her obvious discomfort.