POP MUSIC REVIEW : Birthday Gift to Elvis, From Fans

Early every January, Club Lingerie becomes a place of worship, as L.A.’s roots-rock community piles up the pompadours, breaks out the poodle skirts, polishes the dance steps and works up a couple of Elvis songs to pay homage to the King on his birthday.

The annual Elvis Presley birthday celebration has become one of the city’s most reliable rock institutions, and the seventh edition on Friday (a benefit for homeless organizations) offered the usual mix of perennial participants and surprise entries.

One unannounced performer, Dwight Yoakam, turned in perhaps the most torrid stretch of music, transforming “Little Sister” and “Mystery Train” into extended, anguished explorations.

Probably the chief surprise was an appearance by Tommy Sands, a teen idol in the ‘50s and now pretty much a subject for the “whatever-happened-to?” columns. The wiry, silver-haired singer, 55, exercising an apparent dispensation from the rules, did a Chuck Berry song and his own “Teen-Age Crush” in addition to Elvis’ “That’s Alright.”

Another non-Elvis tune crept into the evening, as the Rockin’ Rebels served up Webb Wilder’s tender tribute “If You Don’t Think Elvis Is No. 1, You’re Full of No. 2.”

Ronnie Mack, who radiates obsession with this music, led the sharp house band, and as always, performances by such rockabilly idealists as Dee Lannon, Russell Scott, the Dave & Deke Combo and others were buoyant reminders that beneath all the Elvis mythology is a bedrock of music that never seems to lose its primal link to the heart and the hips.