POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Paul Anka Works Crowd With Style

Paul Anka’s concert at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday was a 90-minute tour down ‘50s memory lane. For an audience that appeared to have come every step of the way with the 52-year-old singer-songwriter, it was an enthusiastic trip indeed.

Anka has performed in Las Vegas often enough to know how to work a crowd, and he worked this one masterfully. He shook hands, danced with a few women, and hugged a few others. At one point, he grabbed a camera from one fan to take a picture of himself before returning it.

The audience loved it all--especially the flourish with which he finished each number, a beatific smile on his face, arms spread in regal benediction.

Anka had been maligned by some observers in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but his music has served, from the beginning, as a bridge between the pop songs of the ‘50s and the rock music of succeeding decades. And the truth is that Anka is still a powerful performer who does what he does with consummate skill. He sang most of the familiar hits--”Diana,” “Put Your Head on My Shoulder,” “My Way,” “You Are My Destiny,” et al.--with a voice richer with nuance and subtlety than it was 30 years ago.