O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Carter Wears Her Genes With Class, Sass : Carlene showcases her most recent albums in Crazy Horse show full of sparkle and highlighted by tender moments.

Lots of folks talk about family values. When the woman doing the talking is Carlene Carter, who just happens to be a member of arguably the greatest family in country music, you listen.

During her early set Monday night at the Crazy Horse Steak House, Carter gave a sold-out crowd an object lesson in the ties that bind, in honoring tradition as well as in knowing when to break it. The lesson was delivered through music that is the logical extension of her heritage and which at the same time bears the unmistakable stamp of her own experience.

The show was built around songs from her two latest albums: the spunky 1993 release “Little Love Letters” and “I Fell in Love,” the 1990 “comeback” that solidified her reputation in the country music establishment. The only disappointment was that at a scant 70 minutes, it all went by too quickly.

With her recording debut in 1978, Carter was pegged an upstart, and in the first few years of her recording career she continued to flaunt her rock ‘n’ roll proclivities as brazenly as any kid trying to show the world she is not her parents (mom is June Carter Cash and dad is Carl Smith, both major players from country music past).

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Nearly two decades later, landing hits of her own on the country charts, she still plays the part of the rebellious kid sister. She bounced around the stage Monday tossing her waist-length blond tresses and freely kicking up her high, high heels like someone half her 38 years. It all came off as naturally as you’d expect from someone born into the music business.

A high point of the set was her new single, “I Love You ‘Cause I Want To,” a rockabilly-flavored rouser as genuinely exuberant as something like Pam Tillis’ “Cleopatra, Queen of Denial” is calculated. Indeed, what’s ironic and refreshing about Carter’s latter-day commercial success is that her music hasn’t changed so much as country music has come around to her way of seeing things.

On her current tour, which began last week, Carter is getting ace backing from a five-member band that includes NRBQ guitarist par excellence Al Anderson, who also has been writing songs with her. He turned in several characteristically compact and beautiful guitar solos and, in a nod to Carter’s stepfather, Johnny Cash, joined her vocally for a duet on “Get Rhythm.”

Carter and Anderson wrote the title song for her current album, which has the same sort of pop sparkle as the work she did in the early ‘80s with her then-husband Nick Lowe, guitarist Dave Edmunds and Graham Parker’s powerhouse sidekicks in the Rumour. Riding its bouncy melody, she practically floated above the stage.

The heart of the show, however, came from such ballads as “Unbreakable Heart,” a melancholy plea for an indestructible cardiac muscle. Written by Benmont Tench, Tom Petty’s keyboard player, it has the disarming melody of vintage Paul McCartney. Carter used a minimalist approach--no show-stopping crescendos or shattering high notes--to maximum effect.

Even more touching was her rendering of “Me and the Wildwood Rose,” a memory of growing up as the granddaughter of the great Mother Maybelle Carter. In a verse describing the day she got word of Maybelle’s death, Carlene’s writing was as powerful and honest as Dolly Parton at her pre-”Here You Come Again” peak:

I’ll always remember the day that she died.

My daddy, he called me and he started to cry.

I rode on an airplane with all of my pain.

My tears would not stop.

We stood in a circle and sang.

The circle went unbroken as Carlene brought her 22-year-old daughter, Tiffany Lowe, on stage for a sweet duet on “My Dixie Darlin’,” one of the pioneering country songs written by Carlene’s great-uncle A.P. Carter. It was obvious that Mom has passed down the Carter vocal cords. What better family value could anyone give?