POP MUSIC REVIEW : Collin Raye Covers Country That’s Rocky : Influences are evident in his voice and moves, his play list and the distorted guitar and sound of the band.

Collin Raye may have missed his chance to have been on the hit “Common Thread” album of Eagles covers, but his early show at the Crazy Horse Steak House Monday (his first of four performances that night and Tuesday) showed that he’s primed for most other rockin’ ‘70s oldies eventualities.

When country guys line up for their loving and lucrative tributes to Bob Seger, Elton John and the inevitable “Boss on a Hoss” Springsteen collection, Raye’s got the tunes, including a note-perfect rendition of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” and a deafening “Katmandu.”

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Back when I gave a darn I might have groused, “What does any of this have to do with country music?” But what the hey, it’s a lot more endurable--and honest--for someone to retread an unaspiring rock song he actually likes than it is to have him flaunt his “country roots” by driving more synthesizer stakes into the oft-punctured hearts of “Jambalaya” and “Rocky Top.”

Besides, when we’re talking about the modern mega-buck country, oldies rock is the root. Who are these posing, primping Billy Rays and Travis Tritts if not the Tabs, Troys and Fabians of their time, singing tunes that are direct descendants of “Chevy Van” and “Your Mama Don’t Dance”? And like the old rockers who now work the oldies circuit, the new country guys can just coast along, never daring anything original or immediate.

When Raye sings, it’s with just a controlled touch of a twang in a voice that obviously holds Seger, Don Henley and other rockers as its influences. Raye’s stage moves are from rock, as is the distorto-guitar and synthed-up sound of his band. And where those pesky old country stars can give uneven performances at times--just like they’re real human beings or something--Raye is similar to most of his contemporaries in delivering a show so paced and pristine it might as well be on videotape.

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That said, those who enjoy a nice replay of 1974 could do a lot worse than Raye. His generous 80-minute show displayed a hard-working, plainly handsome performer who covered all the bases, from ballads to novelty tunes to full-tilt rockers.

Attired in faded blue jeans, blue work shirt and a brown suede vest, he hit the stage running with the driving “I Want You Bad (And That Ain’t Good),” followed by the ballad “Somebody Else’s Moon,” which, like all but one number in the set, was somebody else’s tune.

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Raye wrote the clever syllable-crowded “To the Border and Beyond,” but most of the songs came from the Nashville assembly line, and it’s hard for even the best singer to invest much feeling in such mass commodities as “Sadly Ever After” and “Every Second.”

He was able to elevate a few songs. “That Was a River” boasted a brighter-than-average lyric about the magnitude of a love, and Raye brought it to life with a vocal that reminded a bit of the very soulful Paul Carrack (of Ace, Squeeze and Mike and the Mechanics fame), floating over rich vocal harmonies from his five-piece band. Another ballad, “Little Rock,” also carried some feeling, even if it did start off hog-tied by a self-serving speech about how “risky” it is to release a song about alcoholism.

“That’s My Story” and “My Kind of Girl” were nice-enough novelty tunes. Raye wandered into Gary Morris territory with the mawkish “Love, Me,” a song about grandparents’ love, where it’s obvious from the get-go that it’s going to end up on a deathbed.

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It bears some mention that the packed house apparently loved every second of Raye’s show, up to and including his guitarist’s encore lead-in of familiar heavy rock riffs from Led Zep, Deep Purple and other Nashville immortals. Raye closed out his show with big, blustery versions of Springsteen’s mildly idiotic “No Retreat, No Surrender” and Seger’s “Katmandu.”